Last updated: February 25th, 2020 5:00 PM

Free Annual Credit Report in India

Credit Information Companies (CIC) are tasked by the Reserve Bank of India to collect and maintain the credit track record of individuals and businesses in India. Since it is very cumbersome for banks to know about the creditworthiness of every customer, Credit Information Companies assimilate the information from various sources and provide the same to Banks on need basis. To obtain credit reports on individuals, the Bank must first become a member of the Credit Information Company and agree to share information about its customers to the Bank.

Importance of Credit Report

A credit report plays an important role in the financial matters of all individuals. Before any lending, Banks, and NBFCs, check the credit report of an individual to determine whether to sanction the loan and/or to fix interest rates. Hence, it is important for all persons to routinely monitor their credit report and ensure that there are no discrepancies.

Free Annual Credit Report

Given the signification of a credit report in an individual’s financial matters, the Reserve Bank of India has recently made it mandatory for the Credit Information Companies to furnish a copy of the report on request, free of cost, to individuals, at least once every year. The objective of providing a free credit report is to ensure that the individuals know about their credit history on file with a credit information company and also offer an opportunity to the individual to have the errors, if any, in her/his credit history rectified. The free annual credit report must show the latest position of the credit institutions’ exposure to the individual as per records available with the CIC. Further, the contents of the free credit report are the same as appearing in the most detailed version of the reports on the individual provided to credit institutions, including the credit score.

How to Get a Free Annual Credit Report in India

The Reserve Bank of India has directed Credit Information Companies to provide access in electronic format, upon request and after due authentication of the requester, one free full credit report (FFCR) including credit score, once in a year (January- December), to individuals whose credit history is available with the Credit Information Company. All Credit Information Companies require to place necessary systems to provide access to the above described Free Credit Report from January 1, 2017.

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