Important changes
Changes to Comprehensive Credit Reporting
We want to update you on the changes we are making to how we report your credit information to credit reporting bodies and the impact this may have on your credit report.
Your credit report is what helps to determine your suitability for credit products such as a home loan, credit card or personal loan.
Comprehensive Credit Reporting (CCR), also known as ‘positive credit reporting’, is happening across many financial institutions in Australia, including Bankwest. CCR will change the way that we report your credit information to credit reporting bodies. In turn, this may have an impact on your credit report.
What are the changes?
The move to CCR means your credit report could include additional consumer credit account information that has been provided by financial institutions to credit reporting bodies. This means your credit report will represent a more balanced reflection of your credit history.
Currently, your credit report is only likely to include information such as:
- Any previous enquiries for credit products which you have made
- Any defaults on payments which were 60 days or more overdue.
The change to CCR will mean your credit report may include information such as:
- When your account was opened or closed
- The type of credit account held
- The credit limit of the account
- Up to 24 months of repayment history.
As always, protection of your data and privacy is very important to us. Please refer to our Privacy Policy for more information on how we collect, share and use your data.
What do I need to do about these changes?
How this change may help you
If you make your repayments on time, these changes are likely to be good for you. Over time you can build up a strong credit record which will provide a more accurate assessment of how you manage credit. This helps us to continue to meet your needs while lending responsibly and ultimately helping to secure your financial wellbeing.
Here are some ways you can tidy things up to get your credit record as favourable as possible:
- Know where you stand
It’s important you know what’s changing and how it may affect you. You can also read about credit reporting more broadly at CreditSmart, Australia’s Retail Credit Association website.
- Get things on track
If you’re having trouble with bills and repayments, now’s the time to take some steps to get things sorted. If you need some help, just ask. There are lots of ways we can work with you to help make things easier.
- Pay your bills on time
As prompt repayments will help you to create a healthy credit report, it’s important to make your repayments on time. If you have trouble remembering when repayments are due, talk to us about things we can do such as setting up a direct debit to make payments easier.
- You can contact us
If you want to talk to us about these changes, you can contact us using the details below.