Credit Bureau (CIC)

A credit bureau — formally a Credit Information Company, registered under the Credit Information Companies (Regulation) Act, 2005 — stores what lenders report about your borrowing and derives a credit score from it. Four hold a certificate of registration in India: TransUnion CIBIL, Experian, Equifax and CRIF High Mark. None of them lends money; your lender chooses which bureau to pull from, and it may pull more than one. Every bureau calibrates its score to the same 300–900 scale, so a difference between two reports is a difference in data and timing, not in scale.

Example

You apply for a credit card: the issuer pulls your CIBIL report, while a home-loan lender may pull Experian as well.