Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited or CIBIL is India’s leading credit information company. With more than 2,400 members, the organisation is India’s biggest and most trusted organisation in the industry. The company started its operations in 2000 and was acquired in 2016 by TransUnion to become TransUnion CIBIL. CIBIL provides ratings to organisations as well as individuals. The company collects the information from various sources, analyses them, and generates a rating/score which helps lenders decide whether the applying entity should be granted a loan or not.
CIBIL collects information related to an applicant’s current and past financial history and his repaying pattern and gives a score to the person. This score varies from 300 to 900. A person having a higher credit score signifies that the person has managed his finances well enough and has a clean record of credit repayments. It also signifies that the applicant has a higher creditworthiness and there is a higher probability of him repaying the loan back in time.
As per CIBIL’s analysis, about 79% of the loans are sanctioned to people who have a CIBIL score of 750 and above. Having a higher CIBIL score not only makes it easier for the applicant to get loans easily, but he also gets the loan at a relatively lower rate of interest. Banks prefer disbursing loans to such applicants because there are very few chances of them defaulting on their loan EMI or not repaying the loan.
As applicants with higher credit scores have greater creditworthiness, they get usually lower interest rates on home loans, as well as on personal loans or car loans. Many banks offer lower interest rates to such applicants which allows them to negotiate with the lending organisation.