In most circumstances, it should come as no surprise to the consumer that a credit check has been done. Do your part and check your credit files periodically – at least every two years – to see if the information is accurate. To request a copy of your credit file, you can contact one of three credit reporting agencies free of charge. In fact, you may want to contact both, as they may have different information on file. Credit reporting agencies play an important part in the information gathering process of any Credit Department. Because of their efforts, accurate and timely credit decisions can now be made within minutes instead of hours or days.
Credit Counseling Canada / Counsel de Credit du Canada (CCC), is a non-profit organization, established in 2000 and governed by a volunteer board of directors. CCC was created to provide a forum for not-for-profit credit counseling agencies and provincially legislated Orderly Payment of Debt programs from across Canada to work together to increase consumer awareness of the available assistance programs, and to develop a national standard in not-for-profit credit counseling. Consumer Credit counseling agency is a community based and managed by professional staff. Not-for-profit credit counseling agencies have helped hundreds of thousands of Canadians to resolve their debt problems and learn to use money and credit wisely.
Credit ratings for corporations and sovereign debt is assigned by a credit rating agency in the United States, the main credit bureaus are Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. A relatively new credit bureau in the US is Innovis In the United Kingdom, the main credit reference agencies for individuals are Experian, Equifax, and Callcredit. There is no universal credit rating as such, rather each individual lender credit scores based on its own wish-list of a perfect customer. In Canada, the main credit bureaus for individuals are Equifax, TransUnion and Northern Credit Bureaus/ Experian. In India, the main credit bureaus are CRISIL, ICRA and Credit Registration Office (CRO).The credit rating agency for individuals in India is CIBIL(Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited). The largest credit rating agencies (which tend to operate worldwide) are Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.
