illion Access Seeker Resources

An access seeker is an individual or an authorised person assisting an individual to interact with either a credit reporting body or credit provider; commonly this means accessing their credit reporting information.

According to the privacy laws, an access seeker must not be a credit provider, mortgage insurer, trade insurer or a person who is prevented from being a credit provider. The access seeker must be authorised in writing.

Access Seeker reports can assist individuals in understanding their credit position prior to an application for credit. The report supplies credit information and provides an indication of an individual’s credit worthiness including a risk score. Access Seeker reports leave a file access footprint on the consumer’s credit record but do not have any impact on a consumer’s credit score.

The illion Access Seeker reports provides comprehensive credit history information, summarised into an easy to understand illion Consumer Risk Score which promotes consistency in understanding the credit worthiness of an individual. illion’s flagship score is accepted by the Big 4 banks and across a range of industry types to predict the overall credit worthiness of the individual.

Obtaining clarity before beginning the loan application process supports brokers in ensuring they are able to consider all available information before submitting a credit application, this then allows them to maximise the likelihood of the application being approved for a competitive product for their client.

Access Seeker reports and Consumer Bureau reports will contain the same information, however they are used for two different purposes.

Access seeker enquiries are not used for the purpose of assessing a credit application and will leave only a file access footprint on the report. File accesses will not have any impact on the credit score. On the other hand, Consumer Bureau enquiries are used by credit providers to check an individual’s creditworthiness for the purposes of assessing a credit application. These enquiries will leave an enquiry footprint on the credit file, and unlike access seeker enquiries are likely to have an impact on the individual’s credit score.

The illion Consumer Risk Score is a number typically between 0 and 1,000 that indicates how credit-worthy the individual is. Most credit scores are between 300 and 850. The higher the score, the better the credit rating. The illion Credit Score is highly predictive and comparisons have shown that it is the best score in the market in assessing an individual’s future credit behaviour.

There are a few ways in which a credit score can be improved:

Paying accounts on time. A consumer who has a good track record of paying for a credit product on time regularly is likely to continue with that behaviour. This can have a positive impact on the credit score.

Not making too many credit applications. Having a lot of enquiries in a short timeframe can be detrimental. Typical behaviour such as applying for a mortgage or the occasional personal loan or credit card is likely to only have a small effect on the score whereas regularly applying for small loans or having a lot of enquiries on the file within a short time period will have a negative impact to the score.

Pay off defaults. Defaults will stay on the file for five years regardless of whether or not it is paid, but paying it off will reduce the negative impact. Over time, the impact of defaults will reduce. Unpaid debts can impact the credit score quite significantly, as well as not paying on time.