How to Read Your CIBIL™ Report

A CIBIL™ credit report can be availed by requesting for the same on the official CIBIL™ website. After receiving your credit information report, you must understand the contents of the report and also how all the information is segregated. It is important to verify the report accuracy while going through it.

Here, we will explain some of the important contents of the report and how to decipher the same:

CIBIL™ score

Every CIBIL™ credit information report contains your CIBIL™ score. A credit score is a reflection of your credit history and is mostly used by banks and lenders while evaluating your creditworthiness. The credit score comes in the form of a three-digit number ranging between 300 and 900. Higher the credit score, better the chances of your loan application being granted. A good credit score is an indication of your capability to repay your loans on time. It also indicates to the banks and lenders that you have sufficient disposable income to repay the loans and credit card bills.

A credit score is calculated using the information available in the account and enquiry information sections of the report. In some cases, the score could be displayed as NA or NH, and it indicates either of the following:

• You may not have a credit history. This could be in case you have not shown any income or you may be a young student and hence, do not have any income to showcase.
• You have not taken any loans in the past or recently.
• You have not taken any credit cards or do not have any other credit exposure.

Personal information

A credit report also contains your personal information, including, your name, date of birth, gender, etc. The section also contains other identifying information as per CIBIL™ registration done by you. This could include:

• PAN
• Passport number
• Aadhaar
• Driver license number
• Voter ID number
• Other identifying information submitted by the lenders 

Contact information

Your permanent and temporary addresses, telephone number, and email address can be seen in the next section of the credit report. These details are provided by the lenders. The report may also include your office address, residential address as furnished by the lenders. It is important to note that the report will mostly have historic information and not just current information. The historic information could go back up to a maximum of four years.

Employment information

A credit report will contain information about your occupation, income, etc as per the information shared by you at the time of opening an account for a loan or credit card. This information is mostly as per the lenders’ submission to the credit bureau and is therefore important to carefully go through and verify.

Account information

This is considered the most important part of the credit report since your CIBIL™ score is directly affected by this. It presents information on all your past loans and credit cards along with your repayment history. This data is available in a tabular format and contains:

• Name of the lender
• Category of credit facility
• Account Number
• Type of Ownership
• Date of opening account
• Date of last payment
• Loan Amount
• Loan Tenure
• Outstanding Balance

In the report, the status of the account can be either of the following:

• STD: Standard, means payments were made within 90 days. STD is considered a favourable status.
• SUB: Sub-standard, indicates payments were made after 90 days
• SMA: Special Mention Account, if the account is likely to turn into a sub-standard account
• DBT: Doubtful, indicates that the account has been sub-standard for a minimum of 12 months
• LSS: Loss, if the account has been tagged as a loss and dues have not been recovered.

Red Box

If within the account information, there are any details to be disputed then a red box containing an alert message is reflected above the account information. This also has the date of the dispute.

Inquiry information

The final section of any credit report is the inquiry section. It contains information about all the recent inquiries made by lenders. Every time you make an application for a loan or a credit card, the lender will send an inquiry to CIBIL™ related to your credit history. The same gets recorded in your CIBIL™ report. Every entry contains the name of the lender, date of application, loan amount, type of loan requested, etc.

Additional Reading: How To Read A CIBIL™ Report

What is the CIBIL™ Dispute Resolution Process?

In case any information on your credit report looks incorrect, you can raise a dispute with CIBIL™ to get it corrected. Here are the steps for the same:

• Go to the Online Dispute Resolution Section on the CIBIL™ website and submit the form.
• CIBIL™ will list down the disputed entries in the credit report.
• CIBIL™ will contact the lenders to correct the information as per the details of the dispute.
• In case the lender accepts the dispute, the information in the report is corrected.

Dispute resolution can typically take up to 30 days.

Conclusion

CIBIL™ report contains all relevant information surrounding your credit history and behaviour. It is important to go through these details periodically to ensure that all the information is accurate and updated.

How to Read Your CIBIL™ Report FAQs