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Student loans to go on credit reports
The Student Loans Company (SLC) is set to get more aggressive with people who regularly miss repayments on their outstanding loans.
Until now, student loans have not appeared on credit files, mainly because the SLC does not have the specific consent of all students to send payment history information to the agencies, one of the basic requirements of sharing account performance data.
The SLC is to send letters to an estimated 60,000 borrowers considered as consistent ‘bad payers’, advising them that they have 28 days to bring their accounts into line. Anyone who fails to respond will be deemed to be in default. Defaults can be registered without the consent of borrowers, so the SLC has found a way to use credit reference agencies as a means of pressure to aid collection attempts.
This new move is likely only to affect those who took out student loans prior to 1998 and the SLC estimates that 30,000 people could see their credit ratings damaged. Defaults stay on credit files for a period of six years and can seriously damage an individual's hopes of getting other lines of credit, such as mortgages or personal loans.
To see what lenders have reported about your credit accounts, you can check your credit report and rating online with checkmyfile, from just £4.85 a month, allowing you to make sure that all the information held about you is correct, and also help to protect yourself against identity theft at the same time.
The Student Loans Company (SLC) is set to get more aggressive with people who regularly miss repayments on their outstanding loans.
Until now, student loans have not appeared on credit files, mainly because the SLC does not have the specific consent of all students to send payment history information to the agencies, one of the basic requirements of sharing account performance data.
The SLC is to send letters to an estimated 60,000 borrowers considered as consistent ‘bad payers’, advising them that they have 28 days to bring their accounts into line. Anyone who fails to respond will be deemed to be in default. Defaults can be registered without the consent of borrowers, so the SLC has found a way to use credit reference agencies as a means of pressure to aid collection attempts.
This new move is likely only to affect those who took out student loans prior to 1998 and the SLC estimates that 30,000 people could see their credit ratings damaged. Defaults stay on credit files for a period of six years and can seriously damage an individual's hopes of getting other lines of credit, such as mortgages or personal loans.
To see what lenders have reported about your credit accounts, you can check your credit report and rating online with checkmyfile, from just £4.85 a month, allowing you to make sure that all the information held about you is correct, and also help to protect yourself against identity theft at the same time.
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