Mortgage Matters – Candace Perko – Nov 2020

10 Things That Won’t Hurt Your Credit Score

You may already know certain behaviours can impact your credit score, either positively or negatively. But did you know that not every action will impact credit score? Here are 10 examples:

1. Paying with a debit card: Using a debit card to access money you already have in your bank account to pay for items won’t impact your credit reports or credit scores. For comparison, when you pay with a credit card, you’re essentially borrowing the funds to pay back later.
A drop or raise in salary: A salary cut or raise may affect your personal and financial life, but won’t directly affect your credit scores. If you lose your job, it is not recorded on your credit reports.
Getting married: Your marital status is not a factor used to calculate credit scores. If you get married, you’ll still have your own credit reports, and so will your spouse. If you and your spouse open joint credit accounts, they may appear on both of your credit reports.
Getting divorced: Actually filing for divorce won’t directly impact credit scores, but if you have late or missed payments on accounts as a result, it may negatively impact credit scores. While a divorce decree may give your former spouse responsibility for a joint account, that doesn’t let you off the hook with lenders and creditors.
Having a credit application denied: Having a credit application denied doesn’t affect credit scores. But the application itself may result in a hard inquiry, which may impact credit scores.
Having high account interest rates: Interest rates and annual percentage rates (APRs) on your credit accounts aren’t a factor used to calculate credit scores, but late or missed payments on those accounts can hurt your credit scores.
Checking your own credit report: Regularly checking your credit reports is one way to keep track of your credit accounts. Pulling your Equifax credit report, or a credit score based on the information in it, will generally result in a soft inquiry, which will not affect your credit scores.
Disputing information on your credit report: If you see information on your credit report that appears to be inaccurate or incomplete, you can contact Equifax for free and they will look into it.
Paying a traffic ticket (on time): If you are issued a traffic ticket – such as a parking or speeding ticket — and pay it by the due date, the information will not be reported to the credit bureaus.
Moving money out of RRSPs, TFSAs or other non-credit accounts: Investment accounts such as RRSPs, RESPs, TFSAs and RDSPs are intended to help individuals build their personal savings. Although there may be tax implications when you move money out of these savings plans, these activities are not reported to the credit bureaus and therefore will not affect your credit scores.