 TITLE: What is a Line of Credit? CONTENT: How a Line of Credit Can Impact Your Credit Score\n-------------------------------------------------\nAs with a card account, your management (or mismanagement) of a personal credit line can have a major impact on your credit scores.\nIf you run up a balance on a personal line of credit and fail to make a minimum monthly payment, your credit score could suffer significantly. Payment history is responsible for about 35% of your FICO® Score☉ , making it the most important scoring factor.\nIf you use more than about 30% of the borrowing limit on a personal LOC, you can expect your credit scores to go down and to stay somewhat depressed until you repay enough of the balance to reduce your credit utilization. The amount you owe on your accounts is responsible for about 30% of your FICO® Score—and credit utilization factors heavily in that category.\nWhen you apply for a personal line of credit, the lender typically conducts a credit check, which leads to a hard inquiry on your credit report. A hard inquiry can cause a short-term drop in credit score, which typically recovers in a few months as long as you keep up with your bills.\nOpening a personal credit line can increase the variety of accounts you have on your credit report. Also known as credit mix, this factor accounts for about 10% of your FICO® Score.\nIf you want to see how a personal line of credit could affect your credit scores, consider signing up for Experian's free credit monitoring service, which will give you access to your credit report and FICO® Score and will alert you when your credit file changes. END