TransUnion, one of the UK's three main credit reference agencies, is overhauling its credit scoring system this month, switching from a scale topping out at 710 to a new range scored out of 999. The change means many people will see their score and band shift overnight, but the company stresses that the underlying data lenders use to make borrowing decisions remains unchanged, so approvals and interest rates should not be affected by the switch itself.

TransUnion says 58% of people will stay in the same band, 36% will move up, and 6% will drop down, with the bottom two bands renamed from "poor" and "very poor" to "low" and "very low". The new score incorporates more data, such as how account balances change over time and credit card usage patterns, and is being rolled out in stages between late September 2026 and June 2027, meaning some people may briefly see two different scores across different apps. Experts, including Loqbox chief executive Tom Eyre, say the change is not a cause for concern, as a lower banding under the new model does not reflect any real change in a person's creditworthiness or repayment history.