A credit score of 490 for a credit card

Notes

• One reading is not a diagnosis. Credit score moves with payment history and how much of your available credit is in use above all — those two are roughly two thirds of the calculation. A clinician reads it against your history and usually against a repeat, not on its own.
• Reference ranges differ between laboratories. The bands above follow the FICO Score 8 bands. Your own report prints the range its analyser was calibrated against, and that printed range is the one to compare against — a difference of a few units between labs is normal and does not mean either is wrong.
• You do not have one credit score. FICO and VantageScore use different formulas, each of the three bureaux holds slightly different data, and there are numerous model versions in use — mortgage lenders commonly use models two decades old. A score of 490 from a banking app and a score pulled by a lender on the same day can differ by 20 to 50 points without either being wrong.
• Card approval is the least score-determined of the four. Issuers weigh income, existing relationship, how many cards you have opened recently — several issuers apply a hard rule about openings in the last 24 months — and how long since the last one. A high score with five new accounts this year is declined by rules that a lower score with a quiet file passes.
• A secured card is the standard route back. It is backed by a deposit that becomes the limit, reports to the bureaux like any other card, and is designed for exactly the range where unsecured approval is unlikely.
• The two levers that move it fastest are payment history and utilisation. Together they are about two thirds of a FICO score. Utilisation — the share of your available limits currently in use — recalculates every time balances are reported, so paying a card down before the statement date can move a score within a single cycle. Payment history moves slowly in the other direction: a missed payment stays on file for seven years, though its weight fades well before that.
• Closing an old card usually hurts. It removes that limit from the utilisation calculation and, eventually, shortens the average age of accounts. Where an annual fee is the problem, asking the issuer to downgrade the card to a no-fee product in the same family keeps the account and its history intact.