Pre-approvalsFile F of 7

File F · The monthly record

Repayment history: who may report it, and who must

Repayment history information records, for a consumer credit account, whether you met each monthly payment, the day it was due, and the day you paid if you paid late. Only a credit provider that holds a credit licence, or is prescribed by the regulations, may report it, and only for an account it also reports to that body, or that another provider has already reported to it.

Drawn for this guide. The licence condition is in section 21D(3)(c) of the Privacy Act.

F.1 · Three facts

Three facts for each monthly payment

Section 6V of the Privacy Act defines repayment history information by what it records about a monthly payment on consumer credit a provider has given you.

ONE MONTHLY PAYMENT

Due on
The day the payment is due and payable
Met?
Whether the obligation was met
Paid on
Only if paid after the due day: the day it was paid

A drawing of the three parts in section 6V(1), not any body’s real layout.

Where a financial hardship arrangement changes a payment, the history is worked out against the payment as the arrangement changed it, and a month the arrangement lets you skip counts as met. The retention period for each month’s record is 2 years from the day that payment was due.

F.2 · Who may

Who may report it

Every disclosure of credit information to a credit reporting body starts from a general rule: the credit provider must belong to, or be subject to, a recognised external dispute resolution scheme (or be prescribed by the regulations), and it must know or reasonably believe you are at least 18.

Repayment history information carries three further conditions, and financial hardship information shares them.

  1. The provider is a licensee, or is prescribed by the regulations. The Privacy Act takes “licensee” from the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, where it means the holder of an Australian credit licence. ASIC issues that licence to credit providers that offer certain types of credit.
  2. The account is one for which the provider also reports, or a provider has already reported, consumer credit liability information to that body: the basic facts of the account, such as the provider’s name, the type of credit, the day it was entered into and the maximum amount available.
  3. The provider meets any requirements the regulations set for disclosing it.

The first condition matters because the OAIC’s list of credit providers reaches well beyond banks, to businesses that let you pay for goods or services 7 days or more later, such as phone, energy and water companies. Being a credit provider is not enough to report repayment history; the licence condition applies on top.

F.3 · Who must

Who must report it

Outside Part 3-2CA, the Act permits reporting but does not require it: the Privacy Act sets when a lender may report repayment history, not that it must. Part 3-2CA of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 makes it a duty for some lenders. It applies to an eligible licensee: a licensee that is a large ADI, or a body of a kind the regulations prescribe, and is a credit provider. Which ADIs count as large is set by the Minister by legislative instrument.

An eligible licensee must supply mandatory credit information about its open consumer credit accounts held by individuals, and those of its banking group, to each eligible credit reporting body, and then keep the information up to date. Mandatory credit information includes identification, consumer credit liability, repayment history, financial hardship, default, payment and new arrangement information.

  1. Within 90 days of the first 1 July as an eligible licensee

    The first bulk supply

    Mandatory credit information for at least 50% of its eligible credit accounts, which accounts being the licensee’s choice.

  2. Within 90 days of the second 1 July

    The rest

    Every remaining eligible account not covered by the first supply.

  3. From then on

    Updates

    Updated information, on an ongoing basis.

The duty doesn’t reach back indefinitely. Repayment history from more than 3 months before the first 1 July on which the licensee (or its group’s head company) was eligible is outside it, and so is financial hardship information from before 1 July 2022.

F.4 · Side by side

Four kinds of entry, side by side

Who may report each kind of entry, and whether it can be used to pre-screen marketing
Kind of entryExtra condition to report itPre-screening use
Consumer credit liability informationNone beyond the general ruleExcluded
Repayment history informationLicensee or prescribed; same account’s liability information reportedExcluded
Financial hardship informationAs for repayment history; reported at the same time as that month’s historyExcluded
Credit enquiryNone beyond the general ruleNot excluded by section 20G(2)(c)

How long each kind of entry stays on a report is set out in the OAIC’s table of what stays on a credit report. Pre-screening is the one marketing use of credit information the Act allows. File G explains it.

F.5 · Age

Nothing from before 18

Credit information about something that happened before you turned 18 can’t be disclosed to a credit reporting body. Identification information is the exception, and so is liability information about credit that began before 18 but was still in force after it.