Do many low balance accounts affect scoring?

[Anonymous]

I have many low balance accounts. These are things like stock option accounts that have no vested shares (that haven't already been sold), old brokerage accounts, old savings accounts, old checking accounts, old money market accounts, etc.

To put it in perspective, I probably have ~6 accounts that COMBINED have less than 3 dollars in them.

Do these accounts affect scoring in any way?

There's lots of reasons I can't close all of them, and some of them, for one reason or another, are theoretically 'useful'. But if they do affect scoring, I'd be more diligent about closing them.

[GregB]

Do any of those accounts appear on your credit reports?

I wouldn't think any of them would be one there.

[Lel]

Echoing what GregB said, none of these are credit accounts, so they shouldn't appear on your credit reports at all.  None of my bank accounts, brokerage accounts, money market accounts, or retirement accounts appear on my reports.

[Anonymous]

Ah, gotcha, you're right, they don't.

[RobertEG]

Just to echo what others have said, FICO is not, and never was intended to be, an evaluation of your credit worthiness, your total assets, your income, your total debt, your total debt to income, etc,.

FICI is just one part of the credit game.  It is an evaluation only of certain accounts, such as revolving or installment loans, that you have commited to, and basically is a prediction of your likehood on becoiming delinquent in the next two years, based on a picture of you past record of making timely  payments against those obligations.

Many credtiors will rely only on a FICO evaluation in their credit granting decisions, but those are usually for the grant of accounts that eitehr dont rely on an initial, hign capital output on their part (mortgages, autos) , or are only for their agreeemtent for you to establish revolving credit that is not intial money out of their pocket.

If and when you apply for a high principal loan, such as a mortgage, you will starkly see the difference.  They might rely on raw FICO score to predict your likelihood of future default, and thus maybe also affix to you a loan rate. but they will almost invariably ask you for a full disclosure of income, all assets, all debts,etc. as part of their final lending decision.