How they decide to grant you credit

There are credit reference agencies, known as Equifax and Experion.  These agencies accumulate and sort out information about us.  They make information available on the voter’s role, information on County Court Judgements, bankruptcies, defaults and payment profiles.

They then arrange the information onto their systems.  They note the voter’s role, and then add on any information concerning county court judgements.  Whenever anyone receives a judgement they have 28 days to pay it.  A judgment is a dispute between different parties over money owed.  Someone may not pay their water bill as they have a complaint.  The water company will issue a county court summons and take you to court.  Usually people don’t even attend, making the judgement issued, a formality.  If the plaintiff does lose then they may claim costs.  If they win they receive their judgement, usually with additional costs.  The plaintiff then has 28 days to pay.  If they do not, then their judgement is recorded on their record for 6 years.  The plaintiff may decide to send bailiffs around in order to recover the debt.  An arrangement may have been made in court to pay weekly or monthly a sum until it is cleared.

For those not settled with in 28 days, the judgement is recorded.  The credit reference agencies will include them in the information under your name and address, along with your date of birth.  The information is also printed in some newspapers.

The credit reference agencies also record any information of defaults.  (A default is the result of breaking a finance agreement with a lender, usually falling into arrears.)  The lender will first issue a default notice, giving details about why you are in default.  By paying and bringing the account up to date avoids having a default notice recorded against you.  Failure to act will result in a default and these often then lead to a County Court Judgement.  The lenders provide the agencies with details of customers who default.

Many lenders, brokers and other business’s need to use these reference agencies, as they need to know the status of other business’s before they fulfil an order or grant more credit, i.e. 30 days credit.  Most only have limited access, which is usually just county court judgements and voters role information.

Other information collected by these agencies is examples of payment profiles; this is usually a history of credit repayments.  An agency may hold information on every credit card, loan, mortgage and any car finance agreements.  They will record the approximate balance, not exact settlement figures, but usually the higher outstanding bills of each agreement, the amount they pay each month, how long the agreement is for, what financial institution it is with (i.e. credit card, bank loan, HP etc) and when it was taken out.  Access to this information is limited to companies with a large number of customers.  They also provide information to the agencies about their customer’s accounts.  In return they can access information in order to risk assess new and existing customers

Add Your Financial Link |