Individuals can directly access their credit information report

The Credit Information Bureau (India) Ltd (CIBIL) is an independent organization which has the database of credit information of individuals and commercial establishments. All the banks and financial institutions, housing finance companies, credit card issuing companies and other lending institutions who are members of cibil provide information of loan borrowers and credit card holders to it, to which it collates, and circulates, on request.

Cibil has become an important tool for banks and housing finance companies as they are able to get credit history of applicants.

Up till now only lenders had access to the information provided by Cibil but individuals could not verify their credit ratings.

Now individuals can access their credit information reports from Cibil. The home loan seekers can access their credit information details prepared by Cibil.

There have been instances where lenders have not notified dues to borrowers, (especially credit card payments and personal loans) and such loan accounts becoming irregular, which therefore regarded customers as defaulters.

But now individuals can access their credit information as analyzed by Cibil and also can get the mistake rectified, if any.

Earlier when borrower applied for home loan he used to get credit information from the bank and his loan application was rejected if his credit report is negative or poor scoring by Cibil.

The lenders directly never provided the CIR to borrowers. If the borrower found that his credit information is incorrect and requested the lender to provide the credit details, then lender would provide him a nine-digit unique borrower control number.

On obtaining the nine-digit unique control number the borrower used to contact Cibil to get the exact details related to the negative or poor scoring details. It has been noticed, most of the times the report of the borrower sent by the member organization to the Cibil was wrong due to which the Cibil report was incorrect.

And to get the mistakes rectified, the borrower had to go through a long process.

Now borrower will have direct access to his CIR. A CIR is a record of the credit payment history complied from information received from credit institutions.

This will enable the processing of credit applications faster in order to help provide quicker access to credit at better terms.

The individuals to get the report, one need to fill up a requisition form available on Cibil’s website. Along with the form, it has to provide self-attested copies of some documents such as identity proof and address proof to Cibil.

The CIR can be obtained by paying Rs 142. It must be paid through a demand draft favoring 'Credit Information Bureau (India) Ltd.', payable at Mumbai and sent to CIBIL. The documents can be sent either through email, post or fax. On receiving the documents and fees, CIBIL will process the request and send a copy of the CIR.

Name and address of borrower Identification and PAN numbers Passport details Date of birth Records of all the credit facilities availed by the borrower past payment history Amounts overdue Number of inquiries made on that borrower by different members Suits filed and their status.

In CIR report does not have Income and revenue details Amounts deposited with banks Details of assets Details of investment. It is expected with the introduction of new base rate system the home loan borrowers will get benefited. The interest rates will be based on the base rate plus a premium depending on the credit rating of the borrower.

The individual having a good credit can get a loan at a lower interest rate as compared to a loan based on a bad credit rating.