There are 3 main ways to check your credit score in Canada: Credit bureaus (Equifax or TransUnion), 3rd party services such as CreditKarma, and lastly your online banking app.
1. Equifax or TransUnion
In the pre-internet days, the only way to know your credit score was to order your credit report by phone or mail from either Equifax or TransUnion.
These days, it’s easy to instantly access your score and your report from either one.
Just input your information into the system online, pay the fee (your score and your report have separate fees) and they will send the information instantly, giving you access to it for a period of time usually.
Alternatively, you can access your report for free the old-fashioned way, via providing two pieces of ID and proof of address over fax or snail mail, and waiting for the report to be mailed out.
Another note to keep in mind–if you’ve checked your score from both companies, you might have noticed the scores tend to be different.
As two separate entities, they weigh different factors with more or less importance.
Don’t Forget!
Your credit score is determined based on a few key factors – how much credit you have, your credit utilization, the number of hard credit checks on your record and your payment history.
2. Third-Party Services
The process for checking your score directly through Equifax and TransUnion can be tedious (and costly) if you were to do it regularly.
This has led to the proliferation of third-party platforms that allow you to quickly and easily keep up with your score.
Websites like creditkarma.ca, borrowell.com and mogo.ca all give you a quick and simple way to monitor your score as it changes.
Borrowell sends an email anytime your Equifax score changes, allowing you to monitor the ups and downs and directly follow along to see how your frequent on time payments are increasing your score.
It also provides a graph of your score so you can monitor how it has fluctuated over time.
These apps also provide tips and helpful, easy to digest information that allow you to understand how scoring works and how to quickly increase your score.
If you can avoid the ads for credit cards and products they want you to buy (this is how they are able to offer your score and report free), it can be a simple way to keep up with and grow your score.
It’s also important to note which agency the app is pulling from, as it will either be Equifax or TransUnion—and as noted, these scores can be different.
Ideally you want to know what your score is from both agencies to get the most accurate picture.
Did You Know?
Credit scores range from 300 to 900, with the average credit score in Canada, according to TransUnion, being 650. A “good” credit score is considered between 660 and 724. A “very good” score is between 725 and 759. A score above 760 is considered “excellent.”
3. Online Banking for RBC & Scotiabank Customers
In recent years, the big banks have realized how much customers want to freely and easily access their score, and they’ve teamed up with an agency to provide access right from within your own online banking dashboard.
RBC, Scotiabank and BMO all provide free access to your TransUnion credit score from within their online platform, and it is likely that the others will follow suit.