Comprehensive Credit Reporting

Previous credit reporting regime

Personal information (things like name, date of birth and current address) yes yes
Credit enquiries yes yes
Prior defaults yes yes
Public record information, court judgements and other serious credit infringements yes yes
Type of account (home loan, personal loan, credit card etc) yes
Credit limit yes
Opened and closed dates yes  
Repayment history information – 24 months yes  
Term of loan or credit facility yes  
 Financial hardship information (for hardship arrangements entered into from 1 July 2022) yes   

Credit reporting in Australia

When you apply for credit, we use information in your credit report to help make an assessment on your application.

We will securely provide CCR information on a monthly basis to the three credit reporting bodies in Australia. By providing CCR information to the three credit reporting bodies, it allows us to use CCR information supplied by other credit providers on any of your future applications for credit. For more information on each of the credit reporting bodies, you can visit their websites.

Financial hardship information

From 1 July 2022, information about financial hardship arrangements can be included in your credit report. This information will only be included if you’ve made a temporary arrangement with us due to financial hardship, or if we’ve permanently varied your loan contract because of financial hardship.

If we’ve agreed to a hardship arrangement with you, this will be noted in your credit report for the duration of the arrangement. Your repayment history information will reflect whether you’ve met the required repayments under the hardship arrangement (instead of your usual contractual repayments). If no repayments are required under the hardship arrangement, your repayment history will show as up to date for the period where no repayments are required.

What will my financial hardship arrangement look like in my credit report?

The financial hardship arrangement will be shown as a simple letter code (‘A’ or ‘V’) next to your repayment history, depending on the type of financial hardship arrangement entered into. 

  • Letter code ‘A’ refers to a temporary financial hardship arrangement. This is a type of short-term relief or deferral of credit obligations. This gets reported each month that the financial hardship arrangement is in place.
  • Letter code ‘V’ refers to a variation financial hardship arrangement. This is a permanent variation to the terms of a credit agreement, such as capitalising your arrears after being in a temporary hardship arrangement. This gets reported once, in the month that the permanent variation took place.

What other details should I be aware of when it comes to financial hardship information?

  • Financial hardship information will stay on your credit report for 12 months from the end of the hardship arrangement.
  • Being in a financial hardship arrangement won’t impact your credit score, which is calculated by each of the credit reporting bodies; Equifax, Experian and illion. However, repayment history information can be included in the calculation of your credit score, so if you’re under a temporary financial hardship arrangement and you miss a payment under the arrangement, your credit score might be impacted.
  • Financial hardship information is not a reflection of poor credit management. In fact, having a financial hardship arrangement can prevent missed payments being recorded on your credit report. Importantly, it means a default won’t be recorded.
  • Financial hardship information does not exclude you from applying for credit in the future. If your credit report has financial hardship information, a potential lender may ask you for more information about your current situation to understand whether you’re still experiencing hardship.
  • A financial hardship arrangement agreed by one account holder will be shown on the credit report for all joint account holders.
  • Your credit report won’t include the reason for the financial hardship arrangement or the details of the arrangement.

Did you know?

You can now request a free copy of your credit report every three months from each of the credit reporting bodies (previously every 12 months). Contact the credit reporting bodies directly (you will need to provide some identification). It's important to check your credit report to ensure the information contained within is accurate.

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