TransUnion, in its recently held media briefing, sheds light on credit reporting in the Philippines, being the only private comprehensive bureau in the market to date.
TransUnion is basically a full-service credit bureau with approved members who are given access to credit information of consumers in form of a credit report, consumer bureau score, and additional added value-services. Because it is important for businesses to fully understand their customers to ensure profitability and efficiency, TransUnion provides high-quality credit data from a database of 500 million consumers and businesses globally. As a result, businesses could gain confidence in knowing more about their potential customers as they mitigate risks in decision-making.
As one of the accredited Special Accessing Entity of the Credit Information Corporation (CIC), TransUnion has been partners with BPI, BDO, Metrobank, HSBC, and Citibank for a centralized credit-information system used to collect credit data. So if you’re thinking about applying for a loan in any of these banks, then your credit score could easily be determined through TransUnion.
A credit score is a three-digit number calculated from your credit report to determine your credit trustworthiness. It tells a quick overview of your credit health, and evaluation of your payment behavior, history, types of credit established, promptness, and the like. A credit history will also include government-issued identification number/s, account histories of bills with credit grantors, public records of items such as bankruptcies, court judgments, and tax liens, and inquiries. All of these are handed by TransUnion and used by partner banks to help with credit decisions.
If you do not have sufficient credit history, your credit score could still be determined through TransUnion’s New-to-Credit score, which uses demographic and other available information to be scored on a generic risk score.
TransUnion president and chief executive officer Pia Arellano also shared that they are looking into offering bureau scores to SMEs, as well as gathering data from other sources aside from banks such as telephone companies (postpaid and prepaid plans), pawnshops, and utilities.
