What is a CIR?
CIR (Credit Information Report) is the report which maintains a track record of your credit history. Your credit history can be information relating to the number of loans you have applied for, number of loans you are currently repaying, the outstanding amount on your account, the amounts you might have defaulted on either on a loan repayment or on credit card bill repayments etc.
Banks usually consider those applicants who have a good track record and have extremely minimal or no defaults on their accounts. A healthy Credit Information Report will always speak volumes about your repayment, spending and income pursuits and will boost confidence within the banking officials to process your loan application without much delay. You as a prudent customer should also know the advantages of possessing a good credit history. Apart from the opportunity of a faster loan processing, you are also entitled to bargain on the terms and conditions relating to the interest rate, repayment tenor etc on the loan amount you wish to acquire. Banks are bound to oblige since they would want to retain the customer who has the ability to repay the debt.
CIBIL (Credit Information Bureau of India Ltd) collects the relevant credit information from all the banking and non banking financial institutions (NBFCs) and consolidates them into one single report – the CIR. Once that is done, this information is made available to all the banking and NBFCs if they require to know more about your credit history in order to help them with their decision of lending to you or not.
The details that are usually contained in a CIR are your name, your address, the Personal Account Number (PAN Number), past payment history, past borrowing history, outstanding amounts, defaulted amounts etc.
Who can access this report?
As mentioned earlier, banks and NBFCs have the authority to utilize your report when you approach them for borrowing a loan. You as a customer are also given the authority to view your report but this comes at a cost. You are required to pay Rs450/- for a CIBIL TransUnion Score which also includes the CIR. This should be submitted along with the following documents:
Self attested copies of the address proof (Bank statement, utility bill)
Identity Proof (PAN card, Passport, Voter ID)
Duly filled CIR request Form, which can be easily downloaded from the website.
All these documents are required to submit along with the Demand Draft.
What does your score mean?
If you stand as low as 300, it means you are a debtor of the bank and are a person who is very poor when it comes to loan repayment. Your loan application will not be processed since you might have defaulted a lot of payments for which the banks may not consider you.
If your credit score is high as 900 points then your loan application will be favored by banks and you will be the most sought after creditor the bank would lend to. However it is important to realize there isn’t any specific cut off score for a bank or any NBFC to accept the loan application since different banks have different perspectives depending on which your credit score might carry some amount of significance.
Rectification of any information:
If you find that the information mentioned in your CIR is not up to date, or the details regarding a loan have gone bad, you can always forward your complaint along with proofs supporting your claim. The following steps need to be complied if your CIR has any error:
1. Send in your queries to the mail id consumerqueries@cibil.com and also do mention the changes you would like to make.
Inform the bank or your lender about the changes that have been made so that necessary changes can be made in your document. Also do back it up with the required proofs to substantiate your claim.
Once the changes have been notified with the bank, the necessary changes will be updated by the bank and the CIBIL will be notified about the same.