Your credit score and credit report, explained

What the Credit Score page shows

Credit Score has two tabs. Overview opens with your latest score on a gauge, its band and how far it has moved, followed by Scores by bureau, a Credit score trend over 3 months to all time, Score factors, Quick insights, your Active credit accounts, Credit utilisation on your cards, and what changed since your previous report.

Accounts is the report itself as a table: every card and loan with its lender, status, limit or sanctioned amount, balance, payment history and opening date, filtered Open, Closed or All. Open one and you see its payment history month by month, with what the lender reported for each month.

Why a credit report is hard to read

A full credit report runs to many pages: a summary, a block for every account you have ever held, and a grid of codes for each month of payments. The score is easy to find, but what moves it, a late month on an old loan or a card running near its limit, is buried further in. A number on its own says little about the report behind it.

FinLens reads the whole report and lays it out as a table you can filter and open, with the score's history beside it.

Who credit score tracking is for

• Anyone planning a home, car or personal loan who wants to see what lenders will see.
• Card holders who want to know how much of their total limit is in use.
• People who download their Experian report now and then and want each one compared with the last.
• Anyone checking that an old loan or card is reported as closed.

What tracking your credit score in FinLens shows you

How FinLens reads your Experian credit report

1. Download your report

   Get your full Experian credit report as a PDF from Experian. FinLens does not request reports from any bureau.

2. Upload it

   On Credit Score, tap Add report. On Add Credit Report, choose Experian under Select Bureau and upload the PDF. If the PDF is locked, you are asked for its password the first time.

3. The rules check it

   FinLens's reader checks that the pages run in order to the end of the report, that the accounts match the printed count and summary, and that the balances add up to the printed total. If anything does not agree, the rules import nothing.

4. Let your mail add scores (optional)

   With Gmail connected, the hourly check reads the score printed in Experian's own e-mails and queues a report attached to them.

5. Add a score by hand

   Add a score records a number you saw in a bureau's or lender's app: the bureau, the score between 300 and 900, and the date.

What you need to track your credit score

• Your full Experian credit report as a PDF, and its password if FinLens cannot open it.
• Optionally, Gmail connected read-only, so Experian's score e-mails are read.
• Optionally, scores you type in from CIBIL, Experian, CRIF High Mark or Equifax.

What FinLens keeps from a credit report

• The score, its range and the report date.
• For each account: lender, type, status, opening, closing and reported dates, limit or sanctioned amount, balance, amount overdue, EMI, rate and tenure where reported, and the month-by-month payment history.
• The number of enquiries in the last 7, 30, 90 and 180 days.
• Your name, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, date of birth and ID numbers are read but not saved among the report's figures, beyond a count of how many different ones your lenders hold. Each account is saved with only the last 4 digits of its number and a one-way code, and the PAN only as a one-way code. The report file you upload is kept as you sent it, encrypted.
• Band words, factor ratings and insights are worked out from these figures each time you open the page and are not stored.

Good to know about credit score tracking

• Experian's full report is the one with a reader built from fixed rules; CIBIL, CRIF High Mark and Equifax reports are not read by the rules.
• A report the rules cannot read gets a single reading with AI help, masked, with the provider asked not to store the answer, and is imported only if its account count and balances agree with its own summary. A scanned report has no text to mask, so it is sent as it is.
• Score e-mails are read from Experian only; other bureaus' mails are not read.
• Accounts, factors and insights come from your newest report. FinLens cannot raise a dispute or correct a report.
• Bands are FinLens's reading: 800 and above Excellent, 750 Very good, 700 Good, 650 Fair, below that Needs work. Every lender sets its own cut-offs.
• Nothing on the page is credit advice, and FinLens cannot promise a higher score.

Questions about credit score in FinLens