Millions of people can benefit from a “one-off” credit score boost, thanks to the snap General Election in July.
According to data from MoneySuperMarket’s Credit Monitor tool, the average credit score for people who are registered to vote is 41 points higher than the average score for those who are not.
Registering on the electoral roll is quick and easy and can have an immediate positive effect on credit scores, according to Kara Gammell, personal finance expert at MoneySuperMarket.
Ms Gammell said: “Improving your credit score usually requires you to demonstrate that you can responsibly manage credit over an extended period of time, so the one-off bonus received by registering to vote is a rare opportunity to instantly boost your score.”
This boost is a one-time benefit and typically happens when a person first registers to vote.
Being on the electoral register gives lenders more confidence that people are who they say they are and that the details they provide are correct.
To demonstrate the scale of this one-time opportunity for people to boost their credit scores, MoneySuperMarket used data from the House of Commons Library to find the number of people registered to vote in each parliamentary constituency.
In December 2022, there were over 5.1 million UK adults not registered to vote.
According to MoneySuperMarket, this means that people could collectively increase their credit scores by as much as 209,439,603 points simply by signing the electoral register.
According to the research, the top 10 constituencies that could see the biggest boost to their credit scores include:
- Liverpool Riverside – 1,455,951
- Bristol West – 1,443,323
- Nottingham South – 1,394,779
- Manchester Central – 1,339,019
- Poplar and Limehouse, London – 1,301,258
- Oxford East – 1,265,670
- Cambridge – 1,263,989
- West Ham, London – 1,245,539
- Birmingham Ladywood – 1,229,754
- Edinburgh East – 1,205,195.
Ms Gammell continued: “While the prospect of a general election and the opportunity to have a say on who gets to run the country for the next five years will spur some people into voting for the very first time, those who are still undecided or have no plans of voting at all should still consider signing the electoral roll if they want to improve their credit score.”
“It only takes a few minutes to do and could improve your chances of being accepted for a credit card, loan or mortgage, or get access to better interest rates.”
