The economic strain that South African consumers have been feeling in the past ha put many in financial trouble or have not been able to satisfy their obligations on accumulated debt, resulting in the consumer being “blacklisted”.
This hinders them from accessing credit from banks or other financial groups. The problem of consumers' inability to access credit is further compounded by their lack of understanding of credit matters and their unawareness of what information is on their credit profiles.
The National Credit Act of 2005 gives the consumers the right to access one “free credit report” a year, so that consumers can become knowledgeable of their credit information and to exercise their right to challenge the information. Consumers' access to their free credit report has just become much easier.
Says XDS Managing Director Vivian Pather: “Credit4life, an initiative between XDS, Blue Label Telecoms and Integrat, allows consumers to easily access their free credit reports via their cellphones, and with that get a better understanding of their credit scores, assisting consumers to become not only credit active again, but also build a better score.”
Members of credit4life will, as they improve their scores, be invited to receive invites for accounts, contracts or credit from credi4tllife partners, plus score many benefits and rewards.
Those individuals who have problems with regards to their credit reports will also be assisted by various Credit4life partners, who specialise in debt counselling and credit rehabilitation services. This initiative was started by Xpert Decision System (XDS), which is the only 100% black-owned registered credit bureau with full accreditation from the NCR, CPA, and CBA.
XDS has significant experience in emerging markets, has Credit Bureau operations in Ghana and Nigeria, plus has been actively involved in Credit Bureau projects in Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and Namibia.
Integrat is an international wireless application service provider (WASP) aggregator that operates in the value added services sector of the mobile telecommunications industry. Says Norman Parkin, CEO of Integrat: “This solution will provide education and awareness of credit matters, allowing consumers to get credit in a responsible manner.”
“Credit4life will empower consumers and enable them to take charge of their credit information, become more credit conscious and with that a more responsible borrower of credit. At the same time creating the mobile solution enables us to reach a much wider audience in a more interactive way,” says Mike Laws, Integrat product manager. XDS has found The Credit Bureau Monitor (published by the National Credit Regulator) shows that for the period January 2009 to September 2009, only 124 287 consumers accessed their Free Credit Report. This represents less than 1% of the Credit Active Consumers.
“Credit4life will use a multi-channel approach to provide free credit reports, education and awareness of credit matters, allowing consumers to get credit in a responsible manner and credit grantors to market to credit healthy consumers more effectively,” adds Pather.
The Credit4life service allows a consumer to get their mandated free report once off, and then enables an updated report at anytime thereafter for just R5. The second phase of the product will also see a subscription model being launched later in the year, which will provide subscribers with regular updates to their profile as well as a number of other added benefits.
Consumers can either go to http://www.credit4life.co.za, credit4life.mobi from the cellphones or simply SMS free to 37996.
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