1. What information would be written on a credit report? How can I contact the credit reference agency ("CRA") to obtain my own credit report?

1. What information would be written on a credit report? How can I contact the credit reference agency ("CRA") to obtain my own credit report?

Generally speaking, a credit report would contain the following information:

• personal details such as the name, ID card number, address and telephone number of an individual (the data subject);
• information about the current and closed credit/loan accounts of the data subject (including the loan amount, repayment data and any overdue balance);
• records of any banks accessing the credit report of the data subject held by CRA in the past; and
• records of any legal proceedings (especially about bankruptcy or debt recovery lawsuits) against the data subject.

You may obtain the contact details of the relevant CRA from your bank, and then approach that CRA directly to obtain a copy of your own credit report. Under normal circumstances, you will have to pay a charge for using this service as the Ordinance provides that a data user, in complying with a data access request (data protection principle 6), can impose a reasonable charge on the supply of the data. The major CRA operating in Hong Kong is called "TransUnion Limited".