This week we have added a section to our website dedicated to instant decision credit cards.

Instant decision credit cards work on the principle that once you have filled in your application form, and hit the apply button, the credit card company comes back to you with a yes or no answer within a few minutes.

This is great if you need to know immediately if you have been given the credit facility and, if used correctly, will help you to manage the amount of applications you make.

However, if overused, this instant decision facility can be devastating to your credit report.

Whenever you apply for credit, the lender will perform a credit check to see how you manage your credit facilities.

If you make several applications for credit in a very short period of time, it can have a bad impact on your credit report because it either looks like you are desperate for credit or appears that you are trying to borrow vast sums of money very quickly.

This will look bad to future lenders because they will think that you are overloaded with existing debt and will not be able to manage anymore and therefore present too much risk.

If you make an application for an instant decision credit card, or any type of credit facility for that matter, and get turned down, you should first ask the lender why they turned you down and try to fix the problem first.  DO NOT make lots of applications one after the other.

You can also learn why you were turned down from your credit report (view your Experian credit report for free). To learn why you were turned down, our guide on ‘How to improve your credit rating‘ will help to explain the key points to you.