Who Keeps Your Credit Report?
Your credit history is usually collected and stored by credit bureaus, also known as credit reference agencies or credit reporting agencies.  A credit bureau not only collects but also processes and stores shared credit information of existing and potential borrowers, and provides such information, upon request, to the lending institutions which are its members.  Members of the public are usually able to access their individual credit records or even dispute or update them.

Credit bureaus have been established not only in countries with developed financial systems such as Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, UK and US but also in countries with less developed financial markets.  Within Asia Pacific, countries and territories such as Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand are at different stages of enhancing and/or implementing their own bureaus.

Different countries have different rules and regulations governing the collection and storage of customers' credit information.  In countries where there is no established central credit bureau, individual financial institutions or other lenders may have their own proprietary data and credit scoring of their borrowers.

In countries like Australia, New Zealand, UK and US, credit bureaus are privately owned.  The major credit bureaus in UK and US are Equifax, Trans Union, Experian or Dun and Bradstreet.  In some other countries, credit information services have been set up as divisions of the Central Banks.

In Malaysia, the credit bureau is managed by Bank Negara Malaysia and has been in operation since 1982.  The bureau maintains a Central Credit Reference Information System which is a computerized database that collects, processes, stores and generates credit information on borrowers from financial institutions and furnishes this information back to these institutions.

Credit bureaus all over the world function under defined regulatory framework.
Where credit bureaus have been set up as part of the Central Bank, the Central Bank's regulations will determine the collection of information, access to the information, privacy of the data etc.  If the credit bureau is set up in the private sector, there are usually separate regulations and codes of conduct issued by the Central Bank ensuring there are safeguards of individual's privacy.  Such regulations will set limits on who can access the credit bureau's data, what the data can be used for, security of the data and ensure consumers can access and correct their own report.

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