Donald* wants to apply for finance for a car, but before he does this, he wants to know what his credit score is. Scorpion discusses where you can find this information.

Scorpion Legal Protection’s advice

To find out what your credit score is, you can check in with all four of the main South African credit bureaus – Experian, TransUnion, Compuscan and XDS.

These four credit bureaus gather information about your credit history, and put this into a credit report. They gather data from a number of places – mostly from lenders. If you ever want to borrow money, lenders will ask one or more of these bureaus for information about you before accepting your credit application. Your credit report is one of the deciding factors for lenders when deciding whether or not they will lend to you, so it’s a good idea to really understand what’s in your report.

What is a credit report? It’s a score given to you by calculating how good (or bad) you are at paying your bills, how much debt you have and how this compares to other consumers. Basically, it tells you (and anyone you want to loan from) how good or bad you are at managing your debt. Should you check your score at one or all of the credit bureaus? Different creditors report to different bureaus – some may report back to all four and others may only report your information back to one or two. This means that different credit bureaus may hold slightly different information about you, which is why it’s a good idea to check your score on each of the credit bureaus from time to time.

How do you check each one?

Experian

You can get free access to your Experian score and report through ClearScore. Everyone is entitled to one free statutory credit report a year through Experian’s CreditExpert service. You can also pay for a month’s subscription or for a yearly subscription.

TransUnion

You can access your TransUnion report once a year for free. After this, you can pay for a once-off report or you can pay per month for a subscription.

Compuscan

You can get one free report a year from Compuscan. After this, you can buy a once-off report or you can choose from 3-, 6- or 12-month paid plans.

XDS

Credit4Life offers 30 days of free access to your XDS report. Or you can pay to access to your report per year.

Tips:

• The National Credit Act provides that everyone is entitled to get their credit report free of charge, once a year from every credit bureau.
• Different credit bureaus may have different information (and scores) for you.

If you have a query, follow us on our Facebook page and ask your question during our next Live Q&A (every first Thursday of the month).

* This is only basic advice and cannot be relied on solely. Names have been changed to protect identity. Information correct at time of publishing.