14 Jun Use South Africa’s Credit Check Agencies

What are South Africa’s credit check agencies and how do they work? South Africa uses a mixture of international and national credit agencies, including XDS (South African), Experion, TransUnion, and Compuscan (South African).

Read on to discover the relationships between these bureaus, their histories, scoring systems, and their position in the context of South Africa’s financial landscape.

Our National Bureaus

South Africa has two large bureaus of its own: XDS and Compuscan.

XDS (Xpert Decision Systems)

XDS was founded by Vivian Pather in 1993. He had extensive experience in the information bureau industry, including work on projects in the United States, Middle East, Australasia, Europe, and Africa. They help institutions get better quality borrowers and consumers get credit at lower costs. XDS has its own scoring system that ranges from 0-1000.

Compuscan

This South African bureau was founded in 1994, headquartered in Stellenbosch (Western Cape). It provides microreporting services and was acquired by Experion in 2019. It also has its own credit score value, called Compuscore PSY.

Global Bureaus

These are two bureaus of the big three trusted by lenders worldwide.

Experion

Experion is one of the big three credit reporting agencies, collecting and analysing data on more than 1 billion people and businesses. The bureau started out as a branch of a company called TRW and was later sold to a large UK company called Universal Stores Limited. Experion makes use of a scoring method called FICO that it developed alongside other large bureaus in 2006.

TransUnion

TransUnion, formally known as ITC, is another one of the big three bureaus. It’s an American credit reporting agency that collects and aggregates data on almost one billion consumers in almost 30 countries, including South Africa. They have a scoring system called VantageScore.

All of these bureaus provide one credit report per year to consumers, as per South African and US law. Did you know that CreditBoost partners with XDS to provide its credit reports?

Get yours now using our free online credit checker! As always, don’t hesitate to reach out if you need assistance with getting out of debt or have credit-related queries.