It is a good idea, as part of any credit assessment, to have some credit bureau input. Traditionally trade references have been requested from credit applicants, but this is really of limited use – no-one in their right mind is going to give a referee that will give a bad reference!

Enter credit bureaus. These provide independent credit reports for consumers and commercial entities that contain usually fairly comprehensive credit data that can be used in a credit assessment. Of course this does come at a cost, but in most commercial situations this cost is very reasonable.

The specific content of the reports differs from provider to provider but there are also some common elements. All have negative data, public information and, for company reports, a risk indicator and companies office information. See table below for the types of information these reports contain.

There are 3 main credit bureaus in New Zealand, and these are, in alphabetical order and with links to their respective homepages (will open in a new tab):

1. Centrix – founded in 2009, so it is the newest bureau of the three, but does have significant industry experience backing as founded by former executives of BayCorp.

2. Equifax – formerly Veda Advantage, headquartered in the US.

3. illion – formerly Dun & Bradstreet, illion still retains commercial links to the global Dun & Bradstreet entity, established in 1841.

Each have their own pricing structures, bureau data and report formats.