What is CCRIS ?

Credit worthiness of a customer can now be evaluated by banks by one of the tools which is referred to as the CCRIS report which is acquired and maintained by Bank Negara Malaysia. CCRIS has indeed become a very crucial tool used for the decision-making for banks for customer’s applications ever since the beginning of August 2001. One of the main benefits of this report is that it provides for real-time and on-line functions for all banks to query any computerised customer credit reports thus allowing them to provide essential credit information about a customer to Bank Negara Malaysia.

Important information that CCRIS provides the banks with:

• It provides information of all existing personal credit facilities of a customer, for instance, the type of facility, and also ownership of the credit facilities
• Information of an individual’s total financial commitment, and that includes the balance outstanding along with the total limit for each of the credit facilities
• Get to view the credit facility for over the past 12 months and this includes legal status as well
• Some additional information which may be obtained would be  the Date of Information Update, Frequency of Payment with the Type of Collateral involved

By reading all of the above, you are probably worried already that your credit information could and even might be abused but do take note that your information is confidential and it can only be accessed by those who are given authority in the banks and this information is kept away from public viewing at all times. You therefore need not have to worry about your information being spread to others. Details in your credit report as stated below.

• Information can only be obtained by a particular bank only if  you make a formal credit application
• Other banks will not be able to view your details at any one time
• Your deposit and investment accounts will not be displayed
• Financial institution of which you borrowed from will not be displayed
• The credit facility enjoyed by yourself will not be displayed
• The conduct of facilities for only a one year period is shown and nothing more is revealed

So, what type of information is actually obtained when a bank extracts a CCRIS report?

• Summarized Credit Report – Conduct of account on the customer and details on the total credit exposure
• Detailed Credit Report – New credit applications are displayed and also the details on specific outstanding credit facilities
• Motor Vehicle Report – Information of motor vehicles which are used as a guarantee for credit facilities
• Customer Supplementary Information Report – Details of customer information such as the address, telephone number, employees name and occupation of that customer which dates back over a 3 year period.

Note that if you would ever want to get your hands on the credit report directly from Bank Negara Malaysia, only a Summarized Credit Report can be obtained. This will be a simple report which will list down all outstanding loans which is under the borrowers name and this includes joint borrowings, sole proprietorships even partnership borrowings as well as those from other associations.

Despite what most people would think, this is not a blacklist system as what most people around have perceived it to be. In actual fact, this is one of the methods used by financial institutions to help them gather the necessary information and view the credit histories of potential or current borrowers.

Do keep in mind however that CCRIS is only used as a tool by the banks for making certain decisions when it comes to approving loans of applicants with hopes that it might help the banks reduce any potential risks that they may face is the future if they intend to make any approvals for their customer’s applications.

However, you should also know that most of the successful loans do not rely solely based on CCRIS records alone. Many other factors come into play when determining the viability of a loan to a customer.  If you take a housing loan for example, one thing that is taken into consideration is the value of the property and also your capability to service the monthly repayments but if you are looking for unsecured loans, then yes, CCRIS is crucial.

A few tips for those with a bad record

If you’re already having a bad credit record, don’t worry too much about as there’s always a way to raising your credit score and it’s not as complicated as what it seems but it will take discipline and hard work.

1. When you have your credit report in your hands, be sure to check it regularly as there might be some errors stating that your payments were made late although they were made on time.
2. Always pay your bills on time. Failing to make payments on time will affect your credit score.
3. Learn to spend wisely and pay off any outstanding credit card debt. Having a high debt on your card is another way of pulling your score down.

These are basically some good habits which we all should have regarding money right from the very beginning but if you already have a bad record now, it’s not too late to make things right again. Although you might be feeling a little bit down or upset, you will be able to rise back up to where you were once again.