Whether you're applying for a personal loan to fund a dream holiday or a new family car, switching credit cards to consolidate debts, to take advantage of a 0% introductory offer, or whether you're a first-time buyer looking to mortgage your new home, one thing's for sure: it's not as easy as it used to be!

The global credit crunch - brought on by unwise lending by providers and unwise spending by customers - has changed the face of the economy, and has forced credit providers to drastically alter their approaches to all types of lending, from credit cards to the mortgage market.

The changes to the mortgage market have been particularly severe, as was noted in a recent study that showed a massive drop in the number of mortgage products on the market. Across the residential and buy-to-let markets, March 2008 alone saw a drop from 7726 mortgage products available down to just 5700, while home-loan deals are down from 15,600 products from July 2007 to the approximate 4,700 currently on the market. Overall, mortgage lending dropped by 6% between February 2007 and February 2008 to an estimated £24 billion, reflecting the lowest number of new mortgages approved since July 1995.

As well as tighter constraints on mortgage lending, with providers limiting the number of packages available and being more strict with whom they lend to, the same can be noted in the loan market. Despite a slight reduction in interest rates in January (an example of lenders and providers making the most of a limited profit window), 2008 has seen a steady increase in interest rates on both small and large loans. On average over the last year, interest rates on personal loans have risen by 1.7%, meaning a loan of £5,000 will now cost you £386 more than the same loan twelve months ago.

With changes to the lending criteria of so many banks and building societies, it's never been more important to stay in control of your borrowing and correctly manage your finances. One of the increasingly easy (and popular) ways of doing this is by regularly checking your credit file.

Figures have shown that, due to loan providers' shifting their lending criteria, applications for credit reports have doubled in the last six months, with consumers taking a keener interest in the way they appear to lenders. And with credit ‘footprints' such as details of your credit accounts, the date they were opened, the credit limit or loan amount, and whether you have missed any payments visible to the lender (and possibly altering their view of you as a customer) there's little wonder why people want to be sure their credit report is in top-shape.

Under the Data Protection Act, credit reference agencies (the people the credit providers use to assemble your credit report and assess your rating) must provide you with a "Statutory Credit Report" for £2. A cheaper and easier option is to allow an Internet site to do the hard work for you, and to provide you with a similar report detailing your credit worthiness for free.

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