Understanding Your Credit Profile

Your credit profile is a record, held by registered credit bureaus, of how you've managed credit over time — accounts, repayment history and any adverse listings. Credit providers use it to assess applications, but it's also simply a picture of your own financial history, and you have specific rights over it.

You are entitled to one free credit report a year

Under the National Credit Act, you may request your credit report from the credit bureaus once every twelve months at no cost. If you haven't looked at yours recently, that's a free and genuinely useful place to start — you can't fix what you can't see.

Disputing something that's wrong is also free

If information on your report is incorrect, you can lodge a dispute with the credit bureau to have it investigated and corrected. You do not pay the credit bureau to challenge information or to correct your profile. The Credit Ombud also resolves disputes between consumers and subscribing members of the non-bank credit industry, including credit bureaus, free of charge.

This matters because it's exactly the space where some businesses charge large fees for something you are entitled to do yourself at no cost.

What affects your profile

Missed or late payments, the number and type of accounts you hold, how long you've held credit, and formal processes such as debt review or court judgments are all reflected over time.

Debt review and your credit record

Being under formal debt review is reflected on your credit record for the duration of the process. This is a normal part of how the system works. When you complete the process and a clearance certificate is issued under section 71 of the NCA, the detail of that debt review must be expunged from the credit bureaus' records.

Be cautious of paid “fast removal” offers

The NCR has publicly warned consumers about businesses promising fast debt review removal for a large upfront fee. Under section 126A(3) of the National Credit Act, a business offering to help remove information from your credit record generally cannot take payment from you before that service has actually been carried out. If an offer sounds like a guaranteed shortcut, treat it carefully.