Your credit report is available to you on-line and for free. Just a few fields to fill in with one or two security checks and your report arrives in your mailbox
rating your credit worthiness.

The report verifies your ID with the Department of Home Affairs
Detects if you are subjected to possible ID Fraud
Provides a credit summary of:
Accounts
Enquiries
Judgments
Notices
Defaults
Collections
Total Balance Exposure
Total Monthly Exposure
Total Overdue Amount

Why should you get this report?

Your creditors access this information when they need to. So you need to know what they are seeing. You will want to know if the information is accurate and correct. You also will see who has been accessing your information.

Did you know that companies like short term insurers use these reports as part of their underwriting process on you when you apply for a policy and submit a claim.

The information, I guess, profiles you in terms of your risk to the company. If you are financially stable then you probably will not submit false or exaggerated claims. So, you want to know if the profile is based on accurate information.

Your competitors in business can also access this report to get an idea of how well your company is doing in terms of creditworthiness. Talk about market intelligence…

You also want to know if your information is not being used in ID fraud. There is a verification provided which report if there is any possible ID fraud on record.

You can also use the records to find ways to improve your credit rating. If you are a slow payer on one account, for example. you can target that account over a period an pay on time and in full to improve your rating.

The overall credit rating does affect how much you can borrow and at what rate of interest. The better the profile the better your chance of a more favourable application.

Credit reports are there for free and the information is useful to firm up your financial planning into the future. Keep a close eye on it – its for free.