These days your Credit Report can be checked for any number of reasons throughout the year, including background checks during job applications, landlord checks and even from insurance or utility providers when you shop around for quotes.

That means even if you’ve not applied for any form of finance, there’s a good chance that you’ve undergone a credit check at least once in the last couple of years. If you have applied for credit or are about to, the information on your Credit Report becomes even more important.

Because there are four Credit Reference Agencies (CRAs) in the UK that each provide your Credit Report information to lenders, landlords, employers and other organisations independently, you can’t be certain that the information held by each is correct until you’ve checked for yourself.

This is where checkmyfile’s Multi Agency Credit Report comes in: it lets you see what’s being reported by all CRAs in one place and the same format, saving you the trouble of checking each individually and interpreting the different information for yourself.

You’ll be able to see:

• Full Credit History and public data from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion and public data from Crediva
• All your information as reported by each CRA in one place
• Who has searched your Credit Report in the last two years
• Public information including Electoral Roll listing and Court Records
• You’ll also be able to get support and helpful insights from our professionally qualified, UK based Credit Analysts online, by phone or by email.

You can try checkmyfile free for 30 days, then for just £14.99 a month after, which you can cancel online at any time.

Why is it so important to see a Credit Report from multiple sources?

One of the most important (but often forgotten) reasons to check your Credit Report from more than one source is that when lenders perform a credit check, they will often gather your information from more than one CRA.

If you’re applying for a mortgage (where the checks are significantly more thorough than most other forms of credit) it’s essential to know what the lender will see ahead of time and the only way to guarantee this is by checking what’s being reported by each of the UK’s Credit Reference Agencies.

That way, it won’t matter which CRA is used to carry out a credit check, and your bases are covered regardless of which is searched – if there is information there to see, you’ll have seen it yourself.

Isn’t the information held about me by each CRA the same?

Not necessarily. Even though each CRA reports your public data and most report how you’ve managed past credit agreements, it’s entirely possible that each one will hold slightly different data. Lenders don’t always report your payment history to each, and instead are more likely to report just to the CRA (or CRAs) that they use for credit checks.

Even public data, such as Electoral Roll address formats can sometimes be loaded in different ways at different CRAs, which can lead to lenders having trouble retrieving your Credit Report, so seeing all of your information in one place will let you easily spot and change any errors.

If you haven’t already, you can try checkmyfile free for 30 days, then for just £14.99 a month afterwards, which you can cancel online, by phone or by email. You’ll get full access to the UK’s only Multi Agency Credit Report, letting you see everything in one place. You’ll also benefit from our professional Credit Analysts, should you need any guidance. Sign-up is quick and cancellation is easy.

Updated on 14/02/2020 by Sam Griffin