Credit Report 3

 What is Credit Rating Agency (CRA)?

A credit rating agency (CRA) is a company that assigns credit ratings for issuers of certain types of debt obligations as well as the debt instruments themselves. In some cases, the servicers of the underlying debt are also given ratings.

In most cases, the issuers of securities are companies, special purpose entities, state and local governments, non- profit organizations, or national governments issuing debt-like securities (i.e., bonds) that can be traded on a secondary market. A credit rating for an issuer takes into consideration the issuer’s credit worthiness (i.e., its ability to pay back a loan), and affects the interest rate applied to the particular security being issued. (In contrast to CRAs, a company that issues credit scores for individual credit-worthiness is generally called a credit bureau or consumer credit reporting agency.)
 

Credit report 2

The term “credit reputation” can either be used synonymous to credit history or to credit score. Credit history or credit report is, in many countries, a record of an individual’s or company’s past borrowing and repaying, including information about late payments and bankruptcy.
When a customer fills out an application for credit from in a U.S. bank a bank, store or Credit Card Company, their information is forwarded to a credit bureau.

The credit bureau matches the name, address and other identifying information on the credit applicant with information retained by the bureau in its files. This information is used by lenders such as credit card companies to determine an individual’s credit worthiness; that is, determining an individual’s willingness to repay a debt. The willingness to repay a debt is indicated by how timely past payments have been made to other lenders. Lenders like to see consumer debt obligations paid on a monthly basis.

The higher the income, all other things being equal and the more credit the consumer can access. However, lenders make credit granting decisions based on both ability to repay a debt (income) and willingness (the credit report) as indicated in the past payment history.