Wandmacher, Ralf and Thorhauer, Yvonne and Sturm, Christian and Driessen, Mareike and Soine, Dominique and Goerke, Tim (2025) A Global Comparison of Credit Bureaus Based on Data Utilization in Credit Scoring. International Journal of Banking and Finance (IJBF), 20 (1). pp. 23-67. ISSN 2590-423X

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Abstract

The basic concept of credit scoring is to assess an individual`s payment ability as well as the specific individual`s credit default risk, hence determining an individual`s creditworthiness. Based on the credit score, financial institutions, insurance companies, telecommunication companies and other businesses decide whether consumers are eligible for a mortgage, credit card, auto loan, and other credit products. However, in many countries, potential tenants and insurance applicants also use credit scores extensively for screening. Accordingly, Credit Bureaus (CB) or Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRA) exert an essential gatekeeper function for important economic areas of consumers’ everyday life. However, when examining CBs globally, there are considerable differences in the use of data to calculate credit scores. Interestingly, the influence of CBs on credit rating receives little to no attention in academic research. This is particularly evident in the absence of a framework for classifying Credit Bureaus. Therefore, 24 traditional and non-traditional Credit Bureaus operating in 17 different countries are analyzed. First, the study identifies the different data types underlying credit reports and credit scores. Second, CBs are classified and clustered according to the type of information used for credit scoring. Furthermore, promising areas of research, in particular the ethical conflict between data protection and economic participation are highlighted

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	G20, G24, G28
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Credit bureaus, consumer reporting agencies, credit scoring, credit reports, data utilization
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Divisions:	School of Economics, Finance & Banking
Depositing User:	Mdm. Rozana Zakaria
Date Deposited:	13 Oct 2025 16:06
Last Modified:	13 Oct 2025 16:06
URI:	https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/32496

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