Establishing a good credit history takes time. If you have steady income and have used the same mailing address for at least one year, you may wish to apply for credit with a local business or hire purchase store or for a secured loan or credit card through a financial institution.

Paying credit obligations on time will help you develop a good credit history and may enable you to obtain additional credit in the future. When you apply for credit, you may wish to see if the company reports account information to a credit-reporting agency.
Companies are not required to report account information but most do. If your credit grantor reports payment history information to the credit-reporting agency, then this information about you will be used by other institutions when you approach them for credit. If you are declined credit, find out why. You may be have been declined for various reasons including your not having met with the creditors minimal income requirement or not having been at your current residence or job for the required amount of time. You can overcome these obstacles with time.

If you have problems establishing credit, you may wish to ask a person with established credit to co-sign an application for you. This allows the creditor to base the decision on both applicants’ credit histories. Please note that a signer and co-signer are equally responsible for repayment of the debt. Payment history on this type of debt may be reflected on both parties’ credit reports. Once timely payments have been made on the account, you may again wish to apply for individual credit. Each creditor has different requirements for issuing credit. If you are declined credit, contact the creditor to determine the reason for the decline. When filling out credit applications, it is important to use complete and accurate personal information.

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