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How do we get your credit report?

We work with Experian to bring you your credit report - here's what you need to know.

03 February 2017Lucy Burgess 1 min read
Johannesburg city
Image by Tembinkosi Sikupela on Unsplash

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Experian is a credit bureau. It’s one of four main agencies in South Africa that is licensed to collect information about your borrowing habits, and put it into a credit report. When you apply for credit, you give lenders permission to check your credit report. This helps them decide whether to lend to you.

The other three credit bureaus in SA are TransUnion, Compuscan and XDS.

ClearScore is not a credit bureau itself: it gives you access to your Experian data. We do this for free, because we don’t think people should have to pay to access their own information.

Because ClearScore pulls your data directly from Experian, we can’t change it ourselves. We simply show you the information Experian currently hold about you. You can raise a dispute with Experian through ClearScore.

If there is a mistake on your report, you can tell Experian using our official disputes process. Experian will then look into your dispute, and will contact you once they have a resolution. This can take up to 20 days, but it’s usually quicker than this.

If you want to track the progress and outcome of your dispute, you can contact Experian directly.

If you need any help with your dispute you can contact ClearScore using our Ask a Question form.

Lenders can’t see your ClearScore account directly. However, your ClearScore account uses Experian data, which lenders do look at.

For example, lenders can’t see the ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ factors in your ClearScore account in the exact way we have written them. When you apply for credit, lenders will look at your Experian data rather than how it appears in your ClearScore.

Bear in mind that your credit report is only one factor in a lender’s decision. They also look at the information on your application (e.g. job, salary, whether you’re a home owner) and any past dealings you’ve had with them.

Key highlights

  1. Experian is a credit bureau. ClearScore gets your report directly from Experian.
  2. ClearScore can’t change the information on your report itself: it has to be changed by Experian. You can tell Experian what’s wrong using our official disputes process.
  3. Lenders can’t see your ClearScore account directly. They can only look at your Experian data.

Lucy Burgess Image

Written by Lucy Burgess

Global Content Manager

Lucy has a wealth of personal finance knowledge, and is one of our in-house experts.