A credit reference bureau (CRB) is a firm that collects information from financial institutions and provides consumer credit information on individual consumers for a variety of uses. CRBs hold credit data shared by financial institutions and facilitate credit lending to financial institutions.
A data provider means a person, business, or government agency providing credit information to a credit reference bureau.
The data subject is an individual or a business entity whose data could be collected, processed, and disclosed to third parties in the credit information sharing system.
Monthly basis credit information on all existing and new credit facilities granted to a person(borrower) by the banks, financial institutions, and other institutions authorized by the Bank (CBK).
A credit report means information issued by a credit reference bureau containing all or part of the data subjects’ credit history.
A listing is a positive or negative record of your credit information that is submitted to CRBs by financial institutions.
CRB receives both positive and negative listings. Positive means a loan that is being serviced (loan repayment is consistent) and Negative means a loan that went into default (no payments).
It takes 90 days for banks and 30 days for mobile lenders after which individuals are notified that they are going to be listed if they don’t make any payment on their loan.
Credit listing is an individual’s credit profile that is shared by the financial institutions while credit rating is the evaluation done by financial institutions on an individual to determine his/her ability to pay back a loan and chances of default.
– Consumer Credit Reports
– Business Credit Reports
– Credit Scores
KNOWLEDGE CENTRE
How can customers correct/clean up their credit history?
- Customers can go to the bank and ask them to correct the disputed details then request for the update to be sent to the bureau immediately
- If the customer disputes any of the information on the report they raise the issue with CIK Consumer Care who follows up with the respective bank.
- Customers’ credit report is updated with information sent through by the respective bank and sent to an email address as provided during the credit report request process.
- If the respective bank does not respond within 14 days to the dispute raised by the client. The bureau deletes the disputed information from the report and the updated report is sent to the customers’ email address as provided during the credit report request process
A good credit score doesn’t automatically guarantee you a loan. Financial institutions have different processes of assessing someone for a credit facility. One organization may grant you a loan and another may not. Maintaining a credit score of above 650, repaying your credit on time, and ensuring that you don’t default on a credit facility increases your chances of loan approval.
What are soft and hard inquiries and how do they affect my score? For every loan application, you make, credit lenders normally make a hard inquiry on your credit history from a CRB, this tends to affect your score while a soft inquiry is when you personally inquire about your personal credit history from a CRB, this, however, doesn’t affect your credit score.
When you frequently make loan applications from different institutions this causes hard inquiries that negatively affect your score.
What can you do to improve your credit history?
- Check Your Credit Report and Fix errors: To improve your credit history start with correcting any errors on your credit report. If you haven’t already, request a free copy of your credit report and check it for errors.
- Pay your bills on time: Overdue payments, even if only a few days late can have a major negative impact on your credit history. If you have missed payments, get current and stay current: The longer you pay your bills on time after being late, the more your credit history should improve.
- Setup Payment Reminders: Making your credit payments on time is one of the biggest contributing factors to an improved credit profile.
- Subscribe to monitoring: Creditinfo will assist you on a monthly basis to stay up to date with your credit information as reported to the bureau by your credit providers.