Rich Melbourne suburbs dominate top credit score league tables in Victoria

At ClearScore, we are always looking for insights into credit scores and regularly review trends in the data of our half a million users. We’ve dived into which areas in Victoria have the highest and lowest credit scores. Is it yours?

Victoria has 6.7 million people living in Australia’s smallest state, covering an area twice as large as England. However Victoria proves to be a small but mighty state with an average credit score of 684, making it the state with the highest average score in Australia.

Source: www.ClearScore.com/au analysis of 450,000 users August 2021, Experian score

All ten of the top 10 areas for credit score in Victoria go to suburbs in Melbourne. Most of these are concentrated in the Eastern half of the city stretching from suburbs on the bay around Brighton through to outer suburbs on the North East.

Stonnington – East (743) came top in the top 10. This is inner SE suburb of Melbourne with one of the highest average incomes (over $100k) in the state. The neighbouring Stonnington West (724) also came in the top 10 stretching from the Botanic gardens to suburbs adjoining St Kida and Brighton. Houses in these areas can go for $2.5 million, putting it in the bracket of one of the wealthiest suburbs nationwide.

Bayside (737) including Brighton and Glen Eira (725) with St Kilda also feature high on the top 10 with credit scores that are high. These suburbs are again correlated strongly with incomes well above national average and sky-high house prices with median house prices in Brighton well above $3 million.

In addition to some of the richest suburbs, the more modest areas in the North East of Melbourne, such as suburbs around Manningham (722) and fringe suburbs stretching Nillumbik – Kinglake (729) also show strong credit scores. The final 3 entries include more central suburbs around Whitehorse west (720), Boroondra (737) and Yarra (719).

If the top scoring areas were concentrated in Melbourne suburbs, the lowest average scores came predominantly from across the state. Only the suburb closest to the airport at Tullamarine (655) has one of the lowest top 10 scores in the State

Mildura (647) on the banks of the Murray river in the North West of Victoria came lowest in Victoria’s rankings. Other regional towns and citires including Ballarat (654) west of Melbourne, Geelong (668) SW of Melbourne and Wyndham (664) on the far western outskirts of Melbourne.

Our methodology also considered regional areas where many smaller towns and rural areas were grouped together in areas with 50,000 to 100,000. Of these Swan Hill (665) around the Murray River, Latrobe Valley (654) in Gippsland and Maryborough (665) all showed up in the bottom 10.

Thankfully, the credit score of your area is very unlikely to mean that you won’t be able to get a credit card or a car loan. What is important is your own credit score. Do you know yours? It’s crucial that how you manage your own credit history is generally what banks and lenders will look at. Everyone can improve their credit score by focusing on the basics and tracking their score over time. A great way to do so is with ClearScore. Download the ClearScore app and keep track of your credit score and credit report for free, forever.

Interested in how Victoria stacks up against the other states? Check out other articles below:

Australia

NSW

Queensland

WA and SA