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You may not think about credit reporting that often, but credit reporters can collect information about you and your credit history. That information can affect your ability to take out a loan, buy or rent a home, get insurance, and even get a job in some cases.
With that amount of information and influence, credit reporters have a responsibility to operate with fairness and accuracy, and to respect your privacy.
Last year, we announced changes that will help hold them to that responsibility. Amendment No. 14 to the Credit Reporting Privacy Code comes after a public review of the code that we began in 2016.
Amendment No. 14 aims to strengthen your consumer rights, keep the credit reporting system fair and improve credit reporters’ compliance with the code.
Read our media release about the amendment
The amendment extends your individual rights and makes it quicker and simpler to exercise those rights. Some credit reporters create credit scores that reflect your creditworthiness, then sell these on to third parties. Once the amendment comes into effect, it’ll entitle you to see your credit scores.
Credit reporters will have 10 working days to give you access to your information instead of 20, and you’ll be able to freeze your credit information with one request instead of making separate requests to each credit reporter. The amendment will also allow credit reporter to use the credit information, under strict controls, to facilitate the return of money owed to you.
Prior to the amendment, the code prevented credit reporters from listing overdue payments under $100 as credit defaults. The amendment will raise this threshold to $125. This will both maintain the real value of the threshold and take account of the substantially higher threshold in Australia (approximately NZ$163).
The amendment will also stop credit providers from penalising you from shopping around to find a good credit rate; reduce the period that enquiries can remain in a credit report from five to four years and strengthen the existing prohibitions on using credit information for marketing.
We had noticed a concerning practice in part of the process where credit reporters verify people’s identities to allow them access to their credit information. When collecting personal information for verification, reporters were asking people to agree to unrelated uses of that information, such as disclosing it to insurers, debt collectors and credit brokers.
Accessing your credit information is your statutory right, not an opportunity for credit reporters to cross-sell products or seek consent to use your information for marketing or debt collection. The amendment explicitly prohibits this practice.
Under the code, credit reporters must file assurance reports with us each year. The amendment adds more reporting requirements and emphasises the role of an independent and experienced reviewer in preparing their reports. This will help ensure that credit reporters are meeting their obligations and are accountable for the information they hold.
Most of the amendment will come into effect will come into effect on 1 April 2019, but there will be lead-in time for clauses that will require credit reporters to significantly change their systems.
Clauses that allow access to credit scores and reduce the time limit for providing access to credit information will come into effect on 1 July 2019.
Clauses that raise the overdue payment threshold to $125, stop penalties for shopping around, and reduce the period that enquiries can remain in a credit report will come into effect on 1 October 2019.
We've published several informational documents about the amendment:
Image credit: 'Check Credit Report' by CafeCredit.com, via flickr (external link)
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