*Loan,banking and credit>>>credit score

What are points in your credit score and how do you increase them?

FICO points are a summary of your credit behaviors. The higher the score the lower the risk you pose to potential creditors. You increase your points in a lot of ways, but the easiest ways are 1) Pay all your bills on time 2) Pay more than the minimum payment on your credit cards every month 3) Have a lot of unused, available credit (pay down your debt and don't max out your cards). 4) Pay off any old debts or black marks on your credit report and don't let anything else go into collection.

If you don't have any credit right now, you can apply for store cards to start building a history. The trick is you have to use the cards and you have to carry a small balance month to month (pay more than the minimum but don't pay it off). Once you have a decent history you can apply for a low interest Visa or something. Just remember, pay more than the minimum, don't get anywhere close to your limit and shop around for a good interest rate (but read the terms of that rate closely - they can spike for things like cash advances or balance transfers).

High scores are developed over time, so if you're careful and diligent you'll be fine!

Here is a good article that talks about FICO scores - it will give you a lot more detail than I can here: http://www.suzeorman.com/igsbase/igstemp...

Raising your credit score is fairly simple, just time consuming.

The ONLY way to raise your score is to pay on a loan, credit card on time, every time. Some folks with so-so credit actually take out a small loan from their bank and deposit it directly into a checking account meant to pay the loan back.
Credit scoring firms such as Fair Issac Company or (FICO) use fairly sophisticated econometric techniques to estimate your credit worthiness. The output from the models is expressed as a number between 350 and 850- these are the points. The higher the score, the more credit worthy you appear.

You increase your score by prudently managing your credit. Pay your loans on time, don't over extend yourself with too many loans, don't max out your credit cards, keep accounts open and in good standing for long periods of time, etc.
Your points or FICO score is a relative assessment of how likely you are to payback a loan. Here are a few steps in raising your score, this does take time
1. Pay your bills on time
2. Reduce your credit card debt to less than 30% of the limit of your cards
3. Do not apply for any more loans or credit cards each time you do your score lowers
4. If you have cards that are paid off do not close the accounts this will lower you credit to debt ratio
This is a very common question that is asked quite often. There are many different factors that will impact your credit score, good or bad. One such factor, that is probably the most obvious, is making all of your payments for all of your bills on time. This has the single biggest impact on credit scoring of all other single factors. Payment history accounts for roughly 35% of your total credit score. If you do have derogatory credit or late payments in your credit profile, the more recent the late payments are, the more negative the impact will be on your credit score
http://www.mkemortgage.net/content/how_c...
The points are actually your score. There are three different credit bureaus and you will have three different scores. (they don't share information with one another and their scoring systems vary). The one thing that is universal about them all is that the higher your score, the more likely you will be approved for a loan. You will also qualify for lower interest rates, less fees, etc.
The only two ways that you can raise your credit score are 1) pay your bills on time and 2) pay down (or pay off) your debt.
As the first poster said raising your credit score can be time consuming...you will not see any results immediately b/c it just doesn't work like that. But over time, they will go up eventually.