Proposal to make more credit information available

Tuesday 17th May 2011

Credit checking agency Veda Advantage is applauding proposed changes to the Credit Reporting Privacy Code, under which a person's repayment history on credit cards, mortgage payments, and other types of credit could be included in credit reports.

Only externally regulated credit providers including banks, telcos, utilities and registered insurers would have access to the data.

Veda Advantage managing director John Roberts said his company supported all the directions taken in the amendment, including consumer safeguards and the limitation on listing defaults under $100.

A provision to enable consumers to freeze their credit reports if they were a victim of fraud reflected the world we live in, he said.

"This is in terms of the increasing incidence of identity fraud and in the critical importance credit reports play in the 21st century financial lives of most New Zealanders."

The reform would "quietly underpin the economy as it climbs out of recession", Roberts said.

"Lenders will be more confident in lending money when they have been able to make more thorough assessments of a borrowers' ability to pay."

NZPA

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