Credit reference agencies hold information about you and use this to create credit reports — but they don’t decide whether you get credit. Here’s how it works.
What is a credit reference agency?
There are three main credit reference agencies (CRAs); TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. CRAs collect and store information about people's credit and borrowing history and produce credit reports on people in the UK. CRAs obtain credit history information from different sources such as:
- Finance companies like banks, building societies, insurers
- Other organisations like mobile network providers and utility companies
- Other public bodies like local authorities and courts.
You can access your credit history information at any time. Additionally, it can be requested either as part of an application or for ongoing account maintenance by lenders and other organisations for various permitted purposes, such as responsible lending, anti-money laundering and fraud prevention.
Who are TransUnion?
TransUnion International UK Limited (trading as TransUnion) is part of TransUnion’s global organisation and one of the three main credit reference agencies in the UK. We combine data with our suite of software and analytical capabilities to help businesses and consumers transact with confidence and make more informed decisions.
TransUnion UK has been operating in the UK for over 30 years, In the US for more than 50 years, and globally we operate in over 30 countries. We connect businesses and consumers through data, technology and analytics helping economies worldwide. We’re a key provider of risk and information solutions within the markets we serve.
As a global information and insights provider, we strive to help organisations optimise their risk-based decisions and enable consumers to understand and manage their personal information. It’s our purpose to help businesses and individuals around the world transact with confidence, access the opportunities that lead to a higher quality of life and achieve great things. We call that Information for Good®. For more information about TransUnion, please see About Us.
Do credit reference agencies (CRAs) make lending decisions?
No. Credit reference agencies do not decide whether you’re accepted for credit. That is the lender’s decision and each lender has different ways of assessing creditworthiness. Credit reference agencies are independent organisations holding the information lenders use, they can help businesses to see trends and make sense of the data but it’s up to the lender as to how they choose to use these insights.
What information do credit reference agencies (CRAs) hold?
Credit reference agencies hold personal information and details about your financial history, including:
- Your name(s), date of birth, current and previous addresses
- Your presence on the electoral register
- Any court judgments made against you
- Any bankruptcies or insolvencies
- Your past and current credit agreements; how much you owe and your repayment history
- Whether you have been identified as a victim of fraud
- Any notice of corrections or disputes on your report
- Any financial connections, including linked addresses, previous names, and people you've had joint financial arrangements with, such as a joint mortgage
Do the three credit reference agencies (CRAs) hold identical information about me?
No. The information CRAs obtain from public sources (such as electoral register data, bankruptcies and court judgments) should be similar, but information supplied by other organisations may well be different. Some organisations supply data about their credit accounts to all three of the main CRAs, while others only supply data to one or two agencies.
Why does my credit score differ across credit reference agencies (CRAs)?
Your TransUnion, Experian and Equifax scores are likely to be different as each of these companies use their own credit scoring system with different maximum scores (TransUnion’s old maximum score is 710 and its new one is 999. Experian is 1250 and Equifax is 1000).
Each CRA creates your report from information sent to them by financial organisations, such as banks, building societies and insurers, as well as other bodies like local authorities and courts. Each CRA has different methods and information inputs they use when calculating the score they share with consumers. Lenders and organisations use a similar scoring system to CRA consumer scores but they are not the same. Lenders have their own decisioning criteria when making lending decisions.
