There are two different searches that can appear on your credit report: a ‘soft’ search and a ‘hard’ search.

When lenders assess your application for credit, they carry out a hard search to indicate that your credit report data has been viewed by them. This does not indicate whether the application was accepted or declined, only that it was assessed.

When companies, such as ours, carry out searches to gather your credit report data, they carry out a soft search. Therefore, when using our credit report or Borrowing Power service, you may find a search has been carried out on your credit report.

As lenders are only able to view the searches that correlate to the search they are carrying out, they will not be able to see soft searches when reviewing your application for credit. This means any soft search you can see on your credit report (such as the ones carried out by TotallyMoney) have no impact on your credit report or credit score, as they have no impact on your ability to get credit.

As hard searches can be viewed by lenders, it is important to ensure that not too many are carried out within a short space of time; as this may suggest to a lender that you are desperately seeking credit and, therefore, a potentially higher risk. The suggested time to leave between applications is 6 months.