No. 179Money3 minviews 101
Published by GK Library Annex
Does Checking Your Credit Score Often Really Lower It?
The idea that a record of looking up your score drags it down: where it came from, and what changed in Korea
There is a saying that checking your credit score too often makes it drop, but in Korea today a lookup alone does not lower your score. Since a rule change in October 2011, records of credit inquiries are not included in credit assessments.
It really used to drop
The rumor is not completely baseless. Before 2011 in Korea, the very record that someone had looked up your credit information was factored into your rating. If you went around several financial companies to see whether you could get a loan, inquiry records piled up, and that alone could lower your rating.
According to news reports at the time, about 3.07 million people were being penalized in their assessments because of inquiry records. The system was criticized because it hurt most the people who urgently needed money and were shopping around.
The rule that changed in 2011
In April 2011, Korea's Financial Services Commission announced measures for low-income households that removed inquiry records from individual credit assessments, and the improvement took effect that October. The Korean government's policy guide also states clearly that a lookup alone does not lower your credit rating.
Inquiry records did not disappear altogether. Their use was narrowed to preventing financial fraud and to assigning a first rating to people who have almost no transaction history to assess.
What actually moves your score
A common misconception is treating a lookup and a loan as the same thing. Opening your score in an app is just a record, but actually taking out a loan and increasing your debt, or missing a repayment date, goes straight into the assessment.
Since 2021, Korea has shown credit as a score from 1 to 1,000 instead of grades 1 to 10. When your score moves up or down a little, that is also not because of lookups but because your loan balance, card use, or repayment history changed.
Checking now and then actually helps
The habit of checking your score is a help, not a cost. You can notice early whether a loan or card you do not know about has been opened in your name, or whether a small late payment you forgot about is still on record.
If your score seems oddly low, you can ask a credit bureau's customer center how it was calculated. If that still does not make sense, the policy guide adds that you can file an objection through the complaint channel of Korea's Financial Supervisory Service.
In Korea, inquiry records have been left out of credit assessments since October 2011, so checking your own score often does not lower it by itself.
Notes and references · Korea.kr policy briefing: “Does checking my credit rating lower it?”. Since the October 2011 reform, inquiries are not reflected in credit assessments. The 3.07 million figure comes from April 2011 news reports; loans and late payments still count
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