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6. What's in Each of these Categories?

Payment History contains Account payment information on specific Types of accounts, Presence of Adverse Public Records (bankruptcy, judgments, suits, liens, etc.) collection items and/or delinquency (Past Due items) Severity of delinquency, Amount of Delinquency, Number of past due and paid as agreed accounts.

Amounts Owed contains all amounts owing on accounts, owing on specific types of accounts, number of accounts with balances, Proportion of credit lines used, Proportion of installment loan amounts still owing, Time since accounts opened, Time since account active.

New Accounts contains Number of recently opened accounts, number of recent credit inquiries, Time since recent account openings, Time since credit inquiries, re-establishment of positive-credit history following past payment problems.

Types of Credit Used contains Number of (presence, prevalence, and recent information on) various types of accounts (credit cards, retail, installment, mortgage and consumer finance accounts)

Remember, this is not a complete list, a score takes into consideration all these categories of information, not just one or two. (No one piece of information or factor will determine your score). The importance of any factor depends on the overall information in your credit report. (It is impossible to say exactly how important any single factor is in determining your score - even the levels of importance shown are for the general population, and will be different for different credit profiles)

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