Your credit score to get updated every week as RBI amends directions: All you need to know

From the current fortnightly review of credit reports, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced that banks are expected to update the credit information report on a weekly basis. The central bank mentioned this in a statement on 4 December.

“Given the increasing reliance of CIs (credit institutions) on credit information reports (CIRs) in credit underwriting processes, it is imperative that the CIRs provided by CICs reflect more recent information. Upon review, it was proposed to amend the extant instructions and transition to weekly incremental submission of credit information by CIs to CICs along with measures to facilitate faster data submission and error rectification,” reads the statement.

From fortnight to weekly

It is worth noting that until August last year, banks used to update credit information on a monthly basis. On 8 August 2024, the RBI instructed banks to change credit information reporting from monthly to fortnightly.

This is now being further revised to weekly from fortnightly as per the latest communication stated above.

RBI's latest guidelines

A. Banks will submit credit information on the 9th, 16th, 23rd and last day of the month to credit information companies.

B. Bank will submit the full file containing credit information records as of the last day of the month to the CICs by the 5th day of the next month.

C. The full file will include all active accounts in the books of the bank and the accounts wherein the relationship between the borrower and the bank has ended since the last reporting reference date.

D. For other submissions during the month, i.e., credit information records as on 9th, 16th and 23rd day of the month, a bank will only furnish ‘incremental accounts’ to CICs. The bank will submit such credit information to CICs within four calendar days from the above-mentioned dates.

Draft direction issued in September

The RBI had issued the draft directions two months ago, on 29 September, inviting public comments. The feedback received on draft directions was examined and incorporated while finalising the guidelines.

Consequently, the RBI issued 10 Amendment Directions to tweak the instructions relating to the credit information reporting process. For each set of institutions, the banking regulator issued separate guidelines.

These 10 directions are issued separately for each set of institutions — commercial banks, small finance banks. local area banks, regional rural banks, urban co-operative banks, rural co-operative banks, all India financial institutions, non-banking financial institutions, asset reconstruction companies and credit information companies.

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