www.iva.co.uk

I have a pre-paid cash plus card who offer a Credit Builder option. Now my IVA is finished, I don't want to go down the route of applying for a Vanquis type cards just in case they are refused. The Cash Plus system seems to work a little differently, and while it's not going to get rid of the fact that the IVA will be on my credit record for the next 4 years, I wondered if it was worth dong a little bit of something to make my file look a litte better. This is what they propose:

creditbuilder is designed to help you get a better credit rating by giving you a small, interest-free loan of £59.40 that pays the 12 monthly fees that you would pay for a year’s use of the cashplus card

creditbuilder works like this:

•APS will lend you a full year’s worth of monthly fees in advance, completely free of interest
•AFL hold the money for you, so no money changes hands and it’s never available to spend
•You simply pay the £4.95 cashplus monthly fee by loading money on to your account
•APS report your payment history to the Credit Reference Agencies.

If you make all your payments on time you’ll have proved that you can manage credit responsibly, so your credit rating should improve

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Well.... it's not really credit is it, it's a prepay with a fee. I thought Vanquis was the one that never refused as their interest rates for credit are super high?

Your credit rating will improve if you do that, it will also improve if your mortgage/rent payments, bank account, mobile phone accounts are up to date.

Once the IVA has dropped off the record and you have cleared any defaults from it, it will also improve.

Until then, I don't think it will make an awful lot of difference to be honest.

I did check whether Vaquis just acepted any aplication, but they don't sodon't want to risk it. Just wanted to make my file look a tiny bit better LOL!

Just a bit frustrated about having to wait 4 years after settling at 100p in the £. Still, I knew what I was signing up to so I shouldn't moan about it!

It is a bit of a bummer I agree. Have you checked your record to make sure that your creditors have marked everything as satisfied? If not, I'd get in touch and ask them to do that - it has to make a difference.