Credit Reports and Scoring
Accessible credit information enables all kinds of businesses to make informed decisions when extending credit, making promotional offers and facilitating a wide range of other activities that are essential to a healthy market economy. This credit information is based on the millions of updates we receive each month from auto dealers, finance companies, banks, credit unions, mortgage companies, retailers, student loan providers, utility companies, public records and more—for virtually every credit-active adult in Canada.
You can count on objectivity, fairness and integrity. As an impartial third party, we do not create any of the data contained in a credit report. We simply collect, compile and display the information that creditors provide. And we constantly work to maintain that trust.
The TransUnion Credit Report provides a wealth of data
There are several categories of information found on a credit report: identifying information, credit history, public records, collections, banking information and inquiries.
Identifying Information may include:
- Name
- Alias or AKA (Also Known As)
- Current and previous addresses
- Social Insurance Number
- Telephone number
- Date of birth
- Current and previous employers
Credit History provides an ongoing historical and current record of a consumer's payment activities, including accounts such as:
- Retail stores
- Banks
- Finance companies
- Mortgage companies
- Credit cards
Public Records may include:
- Registered items and Chattel Information
- Court judgments
- Bankruptcies
Collection Records may include:
- Collection records
- Child support payments
Banking Information may include:
- Closed-for-cause banking records
- Misused banking information
Inquiries include:
- Regular inquiries: Name of credit grantors and other authorized parties who have requested a consumer's credit information for a credit-related purpose.
- Account review inquiries: Name of credit grantors with whom a consumer has an existing relationship and who have requested a periodic review of a consumer's credit information. These inquiries are not viewed by customers purchasing consumer credit reports.
- Other inquiries: Name of other authorized parties who have requested consumer credit information for a non-credit related purpose (i.e., apartment rental, employment, insurance, etc.). These inquiries are not viewed by customers purchasing consumer credit reports.
All access to a consumer's credit information is subject to a customer having a permissible purpose and/or appropriate consent as required by applicable laws.
In addition, any consumer remarks and Fraud Victim statements will be displayed.
Credit scoring makes creditworthiness predictable
The contents of a credit report are translated into a credit score, a numerical value that represents overall creditworthiness. Because a credit score is simply a snapshot of a credit report at the time the score was calculated, credit scores may change to reflect changes in the report. While TransUnion may furnish credit scores to customers based on the information contained in an individual credit report, TransUnion does not maintain or update that information in the individual consumer's credit reports.
There are a wide variety of credit scores available and each lender may use a different score, or give more or less weight to the one they use in relation to other factors. In general, the higher a credit score is, the more trust a business will have in that customer's future performance.
Credit scoring models help businesses make faster, more consistent and more precise predictions of how a prospect or customer will behave in a variety of different situations. For example, certain scores predict future credit behaviour, such as the likelihood of paying as agreed, the likelihood of collecting on a delinquent account and more.
