The Apple Card now affects your credit score with all three major US credit rating agencies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
The card initially only showed up in TransUnion reports until Experian began factoring it in last month. As we explained then, this can be good or bad news for your credit score.
MacRumors spotted a Reddit post.
“Apple card now reporting to Equifax!!”
“Yep, shown on my Equifax report today.”
“Can confirm it’s showing on my EQ file now. Also retroactive reporting.”
One card user was puzzled by the fact that this resulted in a lower score.
“It made my Equifax score go down?! How is that even possible?”
We explained this last time.
Those who track their credit scores regularly are seeing either a bump or drop in their score as a result of the Apple Card being added to their report, which is to be expected.
Calculation of credit scores is based on five factors:
- Payment history
- Utilization
- Length of credit history
- Recent activity
- Overall capacity
For example, getting an Apple Card without changing your spending habits means that you now have access to more credit, but are not using any more of it, so your utilization goes down (which is good). Additionally, you are building up payment history with a new credit provider, which also boosts your score.
Conversely, any new line of credit reduces the average length of your credit history across all cards and other sources, which can hurt your credit score for a time.
One benefit of the card is that Apple has repeatedly offered customers the option of deferring payments in response to the coronavirus crisis. With some losing their jobs and others on reduced income, cardholders may find it harder than expected to keep up with their payments. Apple initially offered this option for the April payment, then successively extended it to May, June, July, and August.
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