The process of checking a credit score in Nigeria is a crucial step for anyone involved in credit activities.
To check your score, you first choose a credit bureau and request a credit report, which includes your personal details, Bank Verification Number (BVN), National Identity Number (NIN), and credit history. Reviewing this report for errors is important, as they can impact your score. We discuss the roles of credit bureaus like CreditRegistry Plc, CRC Credit Bureau Limited, and First Central Credit Bureau Limited in compiling these reports. We also highlight the importance of understanding how credit scores are used by various entities, including financial institutions, landlords, and employers, as they can influence decisions like loan approvals, rental agreements, and employment opportunities.
A credit score is a number, usually between 300 and 850, that tells lenders how you handle loan repayment.
It is a representation of your creditworthiness, and a good score (typically 700 – 850) shows that you pay your bills on time. In contrast, a bad score (below 600) shows that you do not and that lenders should be wary of providing you credit since you are most likely to default.
Your credit score is always included in your credit report. This report also contains your:
Lenders are not the only ones that make use of your credit score. Creditors, landlords, employers, and all authorized financial institutions registered with the credit bureau can use your credit score to determine if they will grant you loans, credit cards, or credit facilities in general.
Since credit scores are very important, especially to individuals who utilize credit, it is very important to occasionally check the credit scores to confirm that they are accurate, and to identify areas that need to be worked on to improve the score or to determine if any fraudulent activities are being carried on their accounts.
To check your credit score in Nigeria, you must:
Initially, the credit scores you receive may not represent your true score as there might be errors. Therefore, you should thoroughly scrutinize the score and make sure there are no errors. To do this, it is vital to understand how credit scores work and how they are used.
A credit bureau is an organization that collects and collates credit information on individuals and businesses to formulate a credit report. This report can then be sold to lenders, who in turn use it to determine the creditworthiness of the individuals.
After choosing a bureau, you can request your credit report, which contains your personal information and credit history, including debts, payment habits, and credit utilization.
Some of the requirements required to request a credit report include:
Your credit report automatically contains your credit score as your score will be generated from the information gathered using the report.
As soon as your report is ready, your score will be displayed on the dashboard, and you can easily determine if it is bad, fair, good, very good, or excellent from the scale provided (each bureau provides a visual scale to explain the performance of your score, usually between 300 and 850).
This score is generated from all your available credit history across all lenders, creditors, banks, and general financial institutions in Nigeria.
After a review of your score, the next step is to thoroughly verify that all the transactions were conducted by you and that the information on the report pertains to you.
This is very important as every single piece of information in credit in your report affects your credit score, so if there is wrong information, errors, or activities not carried out by you in your report, you can dispute it and get it amended by following the bureau’s dispute process.
Checking for errors ensures that your credit score is an accurate representation of your credit history.
As a customer, you are fully encouraged to take control of your credit activities. To do this, you must first understand what a credit score is and how creditors, financial institutions, and other authorized organizations use it to make credit decisions that concern you.
Even landlords and employers can gain access to your credit score to determine whether or not to give you tenancy or employment. This is how vital credit scores can be.
Since it is a measurement of risk, a very good credit score can earn you the trust of financial institutions, which in turn earns you better credit facilities, favourable rates, and terms since these institutions are sure that you will repay the facilities at the agreed time.
It is, therefore, very useful to know how you can improve the scores or maintain a good score to have access to better credit terms.
Credit Bureaus offer many advantages to Nigerians that most need to learn about. Some of these include to:
In Nigeria, there are three main credit bureaus:
These bureaus gather information in different ways, and it is important to visit the credit bureau websites to determine the one that best suits your needs.
CreditRegistry Plc offers you a free glance at your credit report as long as you have your name, email, phone number, and BVN.
FirstCentral and CRC require you to be registered and on their records before receiving a free credit report. To register, you have to pay a fee online.
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