Melvin Swackhamer

So, what does it mean to you and your FICO Score? Creditors assess the risk of lending money through a variety of factors, one of them being your ability to successfully manage different types of credit. FICO not only looks at the mix of credit you have but also at the payment history of these credit types. For instance, if you have a great mix of installment and revolving loans, yet your payment history is bad, your FICO Score will reflect that negative payment history, which represents 35% of your FICO Score.

For creditors, it stands to reason that the better you manage different loans and lines of credit, the lower their risk when lending you money.

Again, since credit mix is only 10% of your FICO Score, it most likely won't determine whether or not you obtain credit from lenders. However, if you're striving to bring your FICO Score to the highest level it can be, your credit mix can play a part.

Okay, so a good credit mix can help your credit score. Does that mean you should start applying for all the types of credit lines you don't currently have? No.

First and foremost, two things happen when you apply for multiple new credit lines within a short period of time:

Therefore, if you want to add something to your credit mix that's currently missing, balance the risk versus the reward. Is it worth a drop in your score to apply for a small loan to show creditors you can manage payments successfully? With credit mix being such a small percentage of your credit score, the answer is, "probably not." However, in the end, the final decision is yours.

Do you have experience with both revolving credit and installment type accounts, or has your credit experience been limited to only one type?

Revolving accounts are those that provide you with credit that allows more flexibility regarding the amount paid monthly (subject to any minimum payments required, and payment due dates, etc.). Some of these include:

These types of accounts usually require a fixed payment each month until the balance is paid down in full. A few examples of these are:

SAP ABAP R / 3 Architecture - The R / 3 system is the platform for all other applications in the R / 3 System In R / 3 , R stands for Real-time and 3 stands for

An example of a malapropism by Juliet's nurse in myShakespeare's Romeo and you "swear by your head that something is true," meaning that if it's false,

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