topic Re: Current Utilization vs Average Balance vs High Balance in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Current Utilization vs Average Balance vs High Balance

Jazee — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 23:00:52 GMT

I know utilization both total and per account is a significant factor in scoring. But what about Average and High Balance. Do either effect the score nearly as much as current utilization (current balance) and roughly, by how much relative to UTI? Does how that information is treated in the approval process vary greatly from lender to lender?

In other words, if average and high balance data points make a significant difference in score or approval chances, which of these situations is best?

a) You charged a total of 90% your credit limit every month and then paid it off completely before the balance was reported each month (assuming you had at least one other account that wasn't a zero balance.)

b) You never charged more than 9% of your total available credit and you always paid the card off before statement close date so the statement balance was always zero.

c) You never charged more than 9% of your total available credit and your balance was never zero, but always lower than 10%.

Or compared to UTI are average and high balance data points relatively insignificant?

Re: Current Utilization vs Average Balance vs High Balance

KatSoDak — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 00:34:02 GMT

Who would know this other than the FI? I don't see how it would affect your Credit Reports. Am I missing something? Wouldn't your utilization always be zero in each of the scenarios?

Re: Current Utilization vs Average Balance vs High Balance

SouthJamaica — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 01:43:21 GMT

@Jazee wrote:
I know utilization both total and per account is a significant factor in scoring. But what about Average and High Balance. Do either effect the score nearly as much as current utilization (current balance) and roughly, by how much relative to UTI? Does how that information is treated in the approval process vary greatly from lender to lender?

In other words, if average and high balance data points make a significant difference in score or approval chances, which of these situations is best?

a) You charged a total of 90% your credit limit every month and then paid it off completely before the balance was reported each month (assuming you had at least one other account that wasn't a zero balance.)
b) You never charged more than 9% of your total available credit and you always paid the card off before statement close date so the statement balance was always zero.
c) You never charged more than 9% of your total available credit and your balance was never zero, but always lower than 10%.

Or compared to UTI are average and high balance data points relatively insignificant?

It's not a factor.

Re: Current Utilization vs Average Balance vs High Balance

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 01:48:59 GMT

Average balance and high balance are not Fico scoring factors. That's not to say they aren't factors looked at by lenders when checking out your report, but they won't impact your Fico scores. Utilization is the only factor you mentioned that impacts Fico scoring.

Re: Current Utilization vs Average Balance vs High Balance

Jazee — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 17:33:17 GMT

Thanks for the confirmation. So if and how the Lenders treat those data points then is essentially an unknown.

Re: Current Utilization vs Average Balance vs High Balance

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 00:50:16 GMT

Correct, and I would say it likely varies from lender to lender. Some may always consider that information, some may slightly consider it and perhaps some don't consider it at all. No way of ever knowing for sure.