Part 1A closed list
OAIC: information on your credit report
Your consumer credit report includes information that identifies you, such as your name, date of birth, address and employer. Beyond that, the OAIC lists the types of information that can be included. A selection, in its words:
- “repayment history information, which is information about whether you have made a consumer credit payment on time, or whether you have missed a payment”
- “that a credit provider has requested access to information held in your consumer credit report in connection with an application that you have made to that credit provider for consumer or commercial credit (an information request, more commonly known as a credit enquiry)”
- “the opinion of a credit provider that you have committed a serious credit infringement”
The OAIC adds that a report may also show times you did not meet your repayment obligations, for example defaults, court judgments and bankruptcies.
The list works in both directions. A credit provider may ask about your income when you apply, but it cannot give your income to a credit reporting body for your report, though it may still use it to decide whether to give you credit. And a credit reporting body may handle no other information about your consumer credit activities.
Part 2Repayment history 2 years
OAIC: repayment history and defaults
A credit provider can list whether you made payments on time or missed any. It shows as a number from 0 to 7, the age in months of your oldest missed payment, and it stays on your report for 2 years.
The condition for a missed payment is precise: you are considered to have missed one if you pay more than 14 days after the due date. And the OAIC is plain about notice: “A credit provider isn’t required to send you a written notice before listing a missed payment on your credit report.”
Part 3A default 5 years
A default listing has the most conditions in front of it. In the OAIC’s words, a credit provider can list a default on your credit report if:
- Overdue“the payment has been overdue for at least 60 days”
- Amount“the overdue payment is equal to or more than $150”
- First notice“a notice has been sent to your last known address to let you know about the overdue payment and requesting payment”
- Second notice“a second notice was sent at least 30 days later to let you know that if you don’t make a payment the credit provider intends to disclose the information to a credit reporting body”
- Waiting period“the credit provider must wait at least 14 days after issuing the second notice before listing the default.”
The Act’s own definition sets the dollar figure as $150 “or such higher amount as is prescribed by the regulations”. The amount is only one of the conditions in that definition, and all of them must be met. Among the others, the payment must be at least 60 days overdue, and the provider must have sent you a written notice about it asking you to pay.
There is an outer limit too: a credit provider can’t wait more than 3 months after the second notice to list the default. The notices count as given if the provider can show they went to your last known address, and they may come by email if that is how the provider usually writes to you. If they went by mistake to an old address that was not your last known one, the OAIC says the listing may not be valid; if they went there because you did not update your details, the provider is likely to have met the requirements.
Once you have asked for hardship assistance, the OAIC says a credit provider may not list a default “until 14 days after they have told you of their decision to refuse your request”. The exception is where it reasonably believes your request was made on the same basis as one you made in the previous 4 months.
Once listed, a default stays for 5 years. Paying afterwards does not remove it: the listing remains, and the credit provider updates it to show the payment was made.
Part 4Financial hardship information 1 year
Financial hardship information is information that can be reported about an arrangement between you and a credit provider to change your repayment obligations, and it is reported against your repayment history information. It stays on your report for one year. Moneysmart adds that hardship arrangements with buy now pay later, phone, internet or utility providers do not show on a credit report.
Part 5The longer clocks
OAIC: what stays on a credit report
A credit enquiry stays for 5 years. Buy now pay later services are a type of credit under the National Credit Code, so the OAIC says those arrangements may appear in your report too.
A court judgment stays for 5 years.
Bankruptcy stays for the later of 5 years from the day you became bankrupt, or 2 years from the day you were no longer bankrupt. A debt agreement has its own rule with several end points, set out on the OAIC’s page on what stays on a credit report.
A serious credit infringement, the opinion of a credit provider described above, stays for 7 years. The National Debt Helpline gives an example: a payment default combined with not giving the creditor your current contact details.
Current consumer credit obligations stay for 2 years from the end of the consumer credit.
Part 6What the clocks do not change
A listing that is correct runs its full time. Moneysmart says you can’t change or remove information on your report that is correct, even negative information. What you can do is ask for incorrect information to be corrected: the OAIC says to contact the relevant credit provider first, and that you can also ask any credit reporting body. Its page Correct your credit report sets out how a request must be handled.