If you're thinking about business financing, leasing, buying a house or a car, your credit score is a very important number. Most lenders have carved-in-stone rules about handing out the best terms, and those rules almost always place a major emphasis on your credit score. The best rates are offered to businesses and borrowers with a score of 650 or higher and if yours is a 648, those two points could cost you thousands of dollars.

Why work with our Credit Advocate Program ?

Example:

On a $165,000 30-year fixed rate mortgage, that half point could cost you more than $19,000 in interest charges, assuming 6 percent is the lowest rate available (see Bankrate's calculators). Fall below 650 and the rate goes up another 1.2 percent.

First things first: First Financial can help you take steps to improve your credit score. The number of variables that play into an individual score make it possible to say that one particular action will increase a given score by a certain number of points. But there are some good guidelines. Call our credit division and ask to speak with one of our representatives.

Please be aware that your credit score is a number generated by a mathematical algorithm – a formula – based on information in your credit report, compared to information on tens of millions of other people. The resulting number is a highly accurate prediction of how likely you are to pay your bills.

We at First Financial know and understand the algorithm formula. If it sounds arcane and unimportant, you couldn't be more wrong. Credit scores are used extensively, and if you've gotten a mortgage, a car loan, a credit card or auto insurance, the rate you received was directly related to your credit score. The higher the number, the better you look to lenders. People with the highest scores get the lowest interest rates.

The difference in the interest rates offered to a person with a score of 520 and a person with a 720 score is 3.45 percentage points, according to the Fair Isaac's Web site. On a $100,000, 30-year mortgage, that difference would cost more than $85,000 extra in interest charges, according to Bankrate.com's mortgage calculator. The difference in the monthly payment alone would be about $235.

Credit scores are not perfect. The major drawback to credit scoring is that it relies on information in your credit report, which is quite likely to contain errors. That's why it's critical that First financial check your credit reports annually, or at the very least three to six months before planning to lease, buy a house or look for an unsecured business line of credit. That will give us and you sufficient time to correct any errors before First Financial funds your lease, mortgage, and/or unsecured line of credit.

There are a lot of things you can do to improve your score. You need to understand what your credit is like now and what's influencing your score today. Then you can take an objective look at the different options available.

The bottom line, contact our credit division and ask to speak with the Credit Advocate Program director, Amaray, call today at 800 956 7313 ext # 305.