It’s probably more so… “We can recommend a new card/balance transfer to improve the score and take a commission”
It’s all designed to sell you things. Be sensible and you’ll be fine.
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I have a similar case with mine I had 1000 and it dropped and hasn’t recovered in over a year.
With TransUnion it’s stuck at 680 for years
Experian I don’t remember it not 999.
Wow 680 
Maybe it’s an age of credit thing that factors into it.
Experian drops when I apply for new products but recovers much quicker than the others back to 999.
Funniest thing about Experian is their Boost feature that arbitrarily increases your score if you connect a bank account to it, as if that would automatically somehow make you more credit worthy.
Just had a look back and it looks like it was a ‘no new updates’ just had it randomly losing points in Feb 2024 but it hasn’t randomly added them back.
Again unclear what exactly will triggered the points.
My developer mind is intrigued to how it’s been programmed.
Experian perm fixed on 999 
This is where my interest comes from too 
I also amazed there’s no ex-devs on Reddit doing AMA spilling the beans and going fuck NDAs.
Oh, I know. Lloyds are the first that directly weighed in after the TU score had a bit of a jump, though RBS may do next month when they do the score update as it’ll pick up the things that Lloyds did on their weekly update a few days ago.
Virgin helpfully almost doubled the limit a few months back on my 0% card and since then have been reminding me that I’ve another 0% offer expiring at the end of this month almost every week.
Whilst I know that credit scores are basically made up numbers, just noticed on Chase that ‘The higher your credit score, the higher your credit limit is likely to be.’. So, with them, it sounds like your credit score would matter.
Not really. It just means you aren’t getting a £20k limit when you have a score of 200. Managing expectations.
I would interpret that to mean ‘the healthier your credit file, the more likely to get credit…’
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The NatWest wording is different, essentially if you’ve a duff score, then they’re not going to give you a card at all. With Chase there’s a sort-of implication that if your score was really high, so would your limit.
Chase aren’t offering me the option of a card as yet, but when they do, I’ll be expecting a ridiculously high limit 
It’s not the score though, to you it’s a score and if it’s higher then good for you.
To the bank, they don’t see your score, they make their own based on what’s on your credit file.
So yes, to you, if your score is higher it’s a better limit.
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I would still like to know how they arrive at the scores, attribtery they maybe.
TransUnion is the only one that I’ve had change in years, it seems to vary a little through the month. It’s also the most sensitive to changes.
I played around with it to work out how the algorithms might work as it’s the sort of thing that interests me.
TransUnion don’t like high credit utilsiation, they remove points when either your entire utilsiation or each individual account goes over the 25%, 50% and 75% thresholds. I mentioned before somewhere I once took one card from 76% to 74%, 51% to 49% and 26% to 24% utilsiation and it increased the score at each step. They also don’t like new accounts, but explicitly don’t care about hard searches. Highest mine’s ever been is 661 and it says there’s “nothing to do” to improve it, so can only assume the only other factor is time/age of accounts.
Equifax on the other hand seems to be the opposite. They don’t seem to care about new accounts or utilisation, but don’t like hard searches. It also says hard searches only affect it for 6 months but I’ve had it drop for a new one that then never recovered after it dropped off the report even after a year. I used to be at 1000, it dropped due to a hard search to 858 and has never gone higher since. There’s been smaller fluctuations that have been inconsistent, but the main thing factor for me always seems to be hard searches.
Experian is harder to gauge as I don’t have access to the full report, but mine is usually just 999, and when it does drop when I open new accounts it recovers a lot quicker than the other two, it’s usually back to 999 after about 3 months.
That’s about all I’ve ever been able to deduce from more everyday things that might change (new accounts, searches, utilsiation), not factoring in higher level things like mortgage/electoral roll, and obvious things like missed payments/CCJs etc.
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My score on Experian is 999 and 1000 on Equifax and neither changed when I had two hard searches for FD and their credit card.
TransUnion is currently 667 but dropped to 658 after applying for FD but rose back up to its currently level in under 2 months.
My total credit utilisation is pretty low, at around 3% for the total credit I have.
I just wish I understood the TransUnion one more and the factors.
I only really use the numbers as a guide, and it’s the trend I concern myself more with.
I thought I’d ask this here, as some of you may have had experience.
If you need to have a credit check as part of your employment offer (say, you are going to be working for a bank in some capacity) is the data they are able to see exactly the same as your credit report, or is there any additional data shared? And is it a hard check?
I’m just curious as I have to undergo one of these in the near future.
Don’t know for sure but would have to believe they could only carry out soft searches. Hard searches should only be for applying for some sort of credit line, and plenty of companies carry out soft searches for various reasons. It would be done to verify your identity, not for eligibility for anything, so should be no reason for it to be a hard search.
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It depends on the job.
I had my entire finances checked; debts, amounts, any missed payments, defaults, IVA’s etc. Not just identity.
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