yes, that’s my point exactly @AngelaR
No debt = no credit rating = absurd
Huge debt = payoff minimum monthly = good credit rating- even if you might not live long enough to pay it all off 
I assume this approach is inherited from the US? When my partner worked over there about 30 years ago, he found it a nightmare buying/renting anything as he had no credit history there. When he tried to transfer his credit history from the UK at that time it was a blank sheet off paper as the UK recorded negative points and the US positive ones. That has changed in the UK now I think.
Two of the three main CRAs are yank owned. Experian actually started out as the credit assessment department of Great Universal Stores which still existed in one form or another until the last remaining bit Argos was sold to Sainsbury’s a couple of years ago. It was effectively their in-house department when they were one of the big catalogue companies to assess whether to give credit, but as you alluded to saw what the big CRAs in the US were up to and spun it out into its own company thinking ‘we’ll have a bit of that”. It’s scary the amount of information the CRAs hold, almost all of it done underhandedly and with nothing individuals can to since although they have our data, we are not their customers but the banks are and we agree when signing up that banks can share our data with them. It’s been discovered that they hold far more than people thought, such as employment information and transaction data, rather than what they admit to if you ask to see your file which is basically what accounts you have and what debt you owe.
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Having just read the blog - I would hope you don’t fall for this tosh (or repeat it). Brexit is failing and will fail because of both unsolvable problems of Northern Ireland/Ireland, and the enormous list of impossible promises by Leave which cannot/will not be achieved.
It is wrong to blame individuals or groups who cannot deliver what is simply undeliverable. The blame should be firmly put at the door or those sold the solution to increasingly discontented people that, when push comes to shove, immigration was the cause of all of their problems.
Back to driving licences - this will be sorted in a couple of months, well before the deadline.
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Irony? Might be able to borrow off your mates, but you would have a zero credit rating!
Sorry Jane but I don’t understand that comment, I certainly wasn’t trying to be funny.
If you have all those things, then in the real world it would seem that you should have a good credit rating. Since it does ‘t work like that and you would actually not have a credit rating at all. So I presumed you were being ironic because as a system it is daft!
We do have all of those and by using three credit cards regularly and having a mortgage we appear to have a decent credit rating.
We’d have no hope! We’ve not had a credit card in maybe 10 years and have never had a mortgage! Amazing I know in this day and age but we bought our first house in 1999 with my dad and brother for a massive ff160,000 (GBP16,000 equivalent!).
Interesting to see subject drift from my stress on driving licence renewal to debate about credit rating…and I still have the stress!!
…but a credit rating is just want it says on the tin, if you’ve never had credit you can’t be rated, you need to have it to prove you’re worthy of credit…stupid I know, years ago a human being would make a judgment now computer says yes…or no!
Interestingly, there appears to be no credit referencing in France. When we applied for our French mortgage in 2015 (then the house was a holiday / second home) it became apparent that the French bank wanted to see quite detailed information regarding our income and outgoings to asses our application. We basically paid off everything we could apart from our UK mortgage so that our outgoings were a third or less of our income. The bank very kindly approved the mortgage. A very different world to the one back in the UK for us now in terms of finance and debt.
Quite right, Peter, everything is done on a case by case evaluation of the project/dossier/what’s being asked for, much better way of doing things even if it takes far more time (and money!) 
We don’t see debt the same way here as in UK.
That’s very obvious, whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is harder to say.
Personally I think we went a bit too far in the UK/USA and the result was the 2007 crash but without access to mortgages it is now all but impossible for many young people to get on the housing ladder. Of course the unhealthy state of the UK property market does not help.
I think it is terrible and dangerous the way people in the UK live so much on credit, think it is normal to be permanently overdrawn etc. Some massive proportion of Europe-wide credit card debt is down to the UK, something like 75% I think; that - to me - is just shocking.
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Maybe linked to low pensions, poor pay scales, limited worker protections and the growth in zero hours contracts. As well as housing prices rises, lack of affordable housing. All makes for people with not enough money being sucked into thinking loans are a good thing.
Two things fuel the Anglo-Saxon world…booze and debt!
Without wishing to upset anyone, I actually started this thread and effectively, and as was the case over 5 years ago, when I used to regularly contribute to SFN, it has gone completely away from the original post.
Having said this, variety is the spice of life and we can always learn something from the things that people share, so all in all, it’s not a bad thing.
P.S. After a 6 month wait, my carte de séjour arrived today. Yippee!!!
P.P.S. I also think that the French system with regards to credit is a very good thing. My financial situation is far better here than it ever was in the UK.
Vive la France, vive la République !
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What is the latest situation?
We applied in late Dec and our app still has the same status.
I recall there was a post from somebody who quoted from a British Embassy meeting with French dept who said negotiating were on going …anybody know ever that post thread is?
There’s a thread called British Outreach meeting…but nothing has changed so no need to hunt for it!
You applied 3 months ago? That is in the blink of an eye on Ants time scale! OH has been waiting over 2 years. I recall your licence expires soon? Is that right? As I think Kim Cranston has a way of highlighting urgent cases. You can message her via this site…
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