27 questions, straight answers

A three-digit summary, on a 300–900 scale, of how you have handled borrowed money. It is derived from your credit report — the record of loans and cards your lenders report to a bureau — and lenders read it as one input alongside your income and their own policy.

One of the four RBI-registered credit information companies — TransUnion CIBIL, Experian, Equifax and CRIF High Mark — computes it from the data your lenders report. The RBI does not score you; it licenses the bureaus and fixes the 300–900 scale every one of them must calibrate to.

Whenever lenders report new data. Since 1 July 2026 the RBI reporting regime runs on four reference dates a month (the 9th, 16th, 23rd and the last day), replacing the earlier fortnightly cycle. A bureau can only be as current as the last submission it received, so changes typically take weeks to show.

Because the underlying data moves in steps. Each lender submits on its own schedule around the four reference dates, so your report — and the score derived from it — can shift several times a month without you doing anything.

Yes, and it does not affect the score: a self-request is not a lender enquiry. The safest route is the free full credit report each bureau owes you once per calendar year, claimed on the bureau's own site after authentication. As for frequency: your score only moves when lenders report, so there is nothing to gain from daily checking — claim each bureau's free report at intervals through the year and read the report, not the app.

There is no regulatory threshold. Lenders set their own cut-offs and they differ by product. As bureau guidance only: CRIF says a score above 700 is generally considered good, and CIBIL notes 79% of loans are sanctioned to consumers scoring above 750.

No — each lender picks which bureau or bureaus it pulls from, often varying by product. That is why two applications can return different scores, and why checking your own file at all four is the only way to see what each might see.

They are separate records, not competing opinions. Lenders report to each bureau on its own cycle, so one file can be weeks ahead of another. Both scores sit on the same 300–900 scale the RBI mandates, so the difference is data and timing, not scale.

With no borrowing on file there is little to score, so a bureau may return no score or a thin file rather than a number. A lightly used card repaid in full is the standard, low-cost way to start building a record.

No. The report holds credit information only — loans, cards, repayment history and enquiries. Income, savings and investments are not on it; a lender asks for those separately when you apply.

Request it on the bureau's own website: RBI requires every registered bureau to give you one free full credit report including the score, once per calendar year (January–December), after authentication, with the link prominent on its home page.

The RBI directions set no fixed expiry for accurate repayment history, so an accurate days-past-due entry stays visible to lenders for a long time. What the rules do fix is the correction clock: inaccurate information must be updated within 30 days of your request.

File a dispute with the bureau whose report shows the error and with the lender that submitted it. The bureau or lender must take steps to update the information within 30 days; past 30 calendar days from your first filing, ₹100 per calendar day accrues in your favour.

“Settled” means the lender accepted less than the full amount owed. It is better than a default but weaker than “closed” — lenders read it as the account not being repaid in full. It is accurate information, so it cannot be disputed away.

Yes. While an entry is disputed and unresolved, the report must disclose the dispute — code, description and date — and you may have your own comment recorded on the report so lenders reading it see your side.

There is no official number. Bureau guidance treats a cluster of recent enquiries as a signal your debt burden may rise, so the practical advice is to apply only when you intend to take the credit and to space applications out.

The RBI directions do not set an expiry for the enquiries section, and bureaus do not publish one uniformly — check your own report's enquiries grid for the window it displays. What is fixed by rule is the alert: you must be told by SMS/email when a specified user pulls your report.

Contact the lender named in the enquiry and get its position in writing, then dispute the entry with the bureau so it is flagged while unresolved. If it looks like identity misuse, follow the fraud chapter: block the facility with the lender, dispute in parallel, and report the fraud on cybercrime.gov.in or the 1930 helpline.

Read the enquiries section every time you claim a free report, act on every bureau access alert, never share OTPs or PAN copies casually, and treat an unrecognised enquiry as a dispute-plus-lender-call rather than something to ignore.

900 — every RBI-registered bureau calibrates to the same 300–900 scale, so no score can exceed it. The scale is common; the models behind it are each bureau's own, and lenders set their own cut-offs rather than expecting a perfect number.

Paying the minimum keeps the account current, so it is far better than a missed payment — but the rest of the balance keeps attracting interest and stays on the report as an outstanding balance, which raises your utilisation. Pay the full amount when you can; the minimum is a floor, not a strategy.

Not by itself. What bureau guidance reads negatively is high utilisation across your limits and a cluster of recent applications. Several old, lightly used, well-paid cards can sit alongside a good score; the risk is balance, not count.

No — and taking a loan you do not need to build a score is advice every improvement list warns against. A loan adds repayment history only while you repay it, at real interest cost. A lightly used card repaid in full builds the same history for free. Note that loan applications you were declined must not be reported at all under the RBI's directions.

Yes, potentially. A guaranteed or co-signed account is your liability too: the primary borrower's missed payments land on your report, and the loan shows in your obligations. Bureau guidance is to watch co-signed and guaranteed accounts monthly — exactly the advice in our enquiries and improvement chapters.

It can. A bounced EMI usually becomes a missed payment once the lender reports the days-past-due, and lenders must separately alert you by SMS/email when they report a default or DPD. If the bounce was a bank error, act immediately: it is an inaccuracy to dispute on the 30-day clock, not something to wait out.

No. An enquiry generated by an application you actually made is an accurate record, and accurate information is not up for dispute — no bureau deletes entries on request. What you can remove is an inaccurate one: an enquiry from a lender you never applied to, a duplicate, or one recorded against wrong details. See the wrong-enquiry chapter for the five steps.

Treat it as suspected identity misuse and move on three tracks at once: tell the lender in writing that the account is not yours and ask for it to be blocked, dispute the entry with the bureau so it is flagged while unresolved, and report the fraud on cybercrime.gov.in or the 1930 helpline. Keep every ticket number — the fraud chapter walks the full sequence.