Establishing a Credit Report

Most people think of credit cards, personal loans or mortgages when credit is mentioned but there are also less obvious forms of credit. Any business that provides payment terms of at least seven days can be a credit provider. Utility companies and telecommunication providers are often credit providers. So are retailers that offer ‘buy now, pay later’ deals.

Even if you’ve never had a credit card, or paid off a mobile phone in instalments, or had an account with a utility provider, you might still have a credit report. If you’ve rented a TV, or gone guarantor for a loan or been a company director, you will probably have a credit report.

Any business that provides a good or service up front and gets paid for it more than a week later is entitled to access your credit record (as long as you’ve put in a request for them to provide you with something on credit).

There are several reasons why you may not have a credit history, such as:

• You’ve never applied for credit

• You were in a relationship where the loans and bills were all in your partner’s name

• You haven’t applied for credit for a long time. In this case you will still have a Credit Report, but it will have no credit history information. (This information is usually deleted once it’s more than five years old.) 

Younger and older Australians, as well as divorcees and recent migrants to Australia, are more likely to have no credit history or a ‘thin’ credit history.

Even if you don't have a credit history, you can still apply for credit. However, the potential credit provider will have to use sources of information other than a credit report to determine your creditworthiness.

You don’t need to get a credit card to establish a credit history. Other forms of credit like a post-paid mobile phone or electricity contract will also kick start your Credit Report.

We will create an Equifax Credit Report on you when we first receive information about you. A credit report is generally established when you make your first application for credit. This could be when you apply for a post-paid mobile phone contract, utilities account such as electricity, gas or water, an internet or Pay TV service, credit card or store finance.

To establish your own credit report, the application needs to be in your name and at your current residential address.

A credit report could also be established if you are a business director and we receive this information from ASIC or default judgement information is collected by us from the court system.