A credit report contains details about your personal and credit history, current payments and account balances. Your report also includes your general credit score and personal information
Credit score
Credit bureaus use all the information on your credit report to produce a credit score. This score is an indication of your creditworthiness – or how you will pay back the money you’ve borrowed. The higher your credit score, the better.
The score you get from Experian is a general score based on your profile. When applying for a loan or other financial product, lenders may look only at certain parts of your report specifically. Your score with them might be a bit different from the one in your report.
Every credit provider uses its own credit-granting methodology. This may include credit bureau data, credit bureau score, their own internal data and information received from the consumer.
Identifying information: This section contains your name and identity number, as well as previous and current contact details and addresses. These details are not used in credit scoring, and updates to this section come from information you supply to lenders.
Accounts and payment behaviour: This section reflects how you have repaid your debts over the past few years. Lenders report on each account you have (or had) with them. Details include:
- Account type, such as credit card, mortgage loan or hire purchase,
- Sate you opened the account,
- Your credit limit or loan amount,
- Account balance, and
- Payment history.
Employment information: Details about your past and current employment history.
Principal information: Information on whether you are, or were, a principal in any enterprise. For example, a company director or member of a close corporation.
Property information: Property information lists any fixed property that you own or have owned in the past.
Previous enquiries: This section lists everyone who accessed your credit report in the last few years. This includes enquiries from lenders you authorised to access your credit report when applying for a loan.
Adverse information: In this section, all the accounts that you have failed to repay (or skipped payments). Additionally, it includes notices, judgments, debt collections and debt restructuring.
- Notices are legal court actions that have been taken against you. In terms of your credit, this is usually after you have failed to repay debts or outstanding accounts. Notices include administration orders, sequestrations and rehabilitation orders.
- Judgments: If you fail to repay your debt or ignore reminder letters, lenders can apply for judgments against you from a magistrate’s court or a high court, which compel you to make the necessary payments. They grant lenders the right to take action against you to collect the outstanding debt.
- Debt collections: If any creditors have handed you over to a debt recovery agency for collection, the details will be listed here.
- Debt restructuring: If you have applied for debt restructuring or are in the process of restructuring debt through a debt counsellor the details will be indicated here.
Did you know? You can dispute your credit report information at any of the credit bureaus for free!
Free dispute process: If any of the information contained in your credit report is incorrect, you may log a dispute. During the dispute period, the credit bureau will contact the information provider for more details and evidence. This process can take up to 20 business days.
The dispute will be resolved in your favour if at the end of the dispute period the credit bureau does not receive credible evidence from the credit provider to support the data.
Experian has built Up powered by Experian, a progressive web app that allows consumers and MSME owners to view their personal profile data as hosted by the bureau. This data covers historical credit repayment behaviour as well as a range of other personal information (address data, contact information, historical employment and recent foot-printing enquiries). Up is available to consumers free of charge – register here to access your personal information and even receive alerts on changes to your bureau profile data as and when it happens.