 Blacklisted, a term synonymous with credit bureaus. Today, I'm going to bust that myth. Our credit profiles are our doors to access the credit market, to access good credit, assets like our home loans and our barter left mortgages, to access service agreements like our rental agreements or our cell phone accounts, to access other credit like short-term credit, unsecured credit, secured credit. But we shouldn't be passengers oblivious to the levers that affect our credit score. Today, I want to share with you the data science behind how to improve your credit score. Prior to lockdown, 80% of tenants on the TPN credit bureau were in good standing with their rent and that would have had a positive impact on their credit score. In the same period, the National Credit Regulator reported that 91% of mortgage agreements were paid up. At the same time, only 65% of short-term credit agreements were paid up. The impact that would have had on consumers for the 91% of mortgages that were paid up, that would have had a positive effect on their credit profile versus the 35% of a real short-term credit that would have had a negative impact on their credit profile. Importantly, credit bureaus give us the opportunity to improve our credit score simply because of the vast volume of information that we create, often unwittingly. So I want to pause here for a moment and I want to talk about the overarching number one step that you need to take to improve your credit score. Step number one, obtain a copy of your credit profile. You're entitled to one free credit report per annum. Get your report, get your score, that's our starting point. Next, I'm going to share with you some concrete steps that you can take to improve your credit score. Consumers are often really surprised with the vast quantity of credit activity that is contained on their own credit profiles. So let's look at the number one category of information that's going to affect your credit profile and that's your payment profile information. Credit providers are obliged to share their credit agreements with you with the data hub. The credit bureaus then access that data, bring it into their credit bureaus and create your credit profile. Your payment profile information will include for every single credit agreement that you have, the total value of credit that you've taken up, the total value of credit that's outstanding to each of those credit providers, each provided the value of repayment on a monthly basis and any areas that you might have to each of those credit providers. That data's then aggregated to look at a combined view of the total value of debt that you've taken up, the total value of debt that you've taken out, the monthly repayments and any areas that you might have. In addition to that, the credit bureaus build your payment profile line, which looks at how you pay each of your credit providers on a monthly basis. Your payment profile data ratings will indicate whether your account is settled in full at the end of the month or if you are one month, two month, three month, four month, up to nine months in a rears with your credit agreements. So steps to improve your credit score based on your payment profile information. Step number one, don't skip or miss a month of repayments. Sometimes consumers think, oh, the amount's so small, I won't pay it this month, I'll catch it up double next month. The effect of that on your credit profile is to indicate in month one, your account is up to date, in month two, your one month in a rears and in month three, you're back to being fully settled up. That month, which indicates one month in a rears, sits on your credit profile for a period of three years because payment profile reflects on your credit profile for a period of three years. It will take 36 months for that one skip payment to finally exit off of your credit profile. Step number two is about affordability. So your credit provider, when you're gonna apply for more credit, is going to look at reckless lending. And that means looking at what your earnings are, what your total current commitment and exposure is, as well as what new debt you wanna bring in. So when we talk about something like your credit facility, your credit provider is going to look at the total value that you have access to. Maybe you've got a facility of 100,000 rand, but you've only accessed 10,000 of that 100,000 rand. In terms of affordability, the full 100,000 rand is going to be taken into account to determine your affordability. Step number three is understanding your credit utilization. What is your credit utilization? Again, going back to your credit facilities, that 100,000 rand facility that you have access to, but now you've maxed that facility out to its full 100,000 rand. That is going to have a negative impact on your credit score as well. Now, let's look at your judgments and your adverse information. Judgments and adverse information also will negatively affect your score, but the weighting of how much it negatively affects your score is based on things like the recency of the data. How old is the judgment? Is it already five years old or was it only issued in the last month or two? We also look at the total value in terms of those judgments and adverse listings and how many you have. Importantly, consumers are encouraged to rehabilitate. They're rewarded for rehabilitation. What does that mean? The National Credit Act requires that any paid up judgments or paid up adverse listings are removed from your credit profile. So what are the steps that you can take to improve your credit score? In first step, we had a look at your credit profile. You notice that there were judgments or defaults that are old that you've already paid up. You're gonna log a dispute with the credit bureaus and have that information removed from your credit profile. Or you look at your credit profile and you see that there are judgments and defaults that are still outstanding. You're gonna need to settle that debt. Once settled, the credit provider will then share that data with the credit bureau and the information will be removed from your credit profile and that will have a positive effect on your credit score. Importantly, credit providers don't just look at the credit bureau, credit profile information on you. They supplement the information with internal data that they might have on you as well. So consumers are encouraged to shop around for credit. You're going for a home loan, often your bond originator will submit multiple offers to many different banks. And this is to encourage the banks to provide the best interest rate to the consumer. The consumer is encouraged to negotiate for the best interest rate. This leads me into foot printing. Often consumers fear that multiple submissions to many banks will have a negative impact on their foot printing. What is foot printing? It's simply a fancy word for previous inquiries performed on the consumer. Foot printing does not have a negative effect on your credit profile, simply because as I said, consumers are encouraged to shop around for credit, particularly with a home loan application to negotiate the best terms possible. Lastly, let's talk about disputes. As a consumer, you've gone through that first step of obtaining your free credit report. And you're going to go through each item of information looking for any information that may be inaccurate and may have a negative effect on your credit profile. And you have the right to go to the credit bureau and log a dispute. The bureau must log your dispute and mask the information which is being disputed. So we won't display it on your credit profile. During that period, we will display a dispute flag and credit providers will not entertain or enter into credit agreements until that dispute has been resolved. There's a maximum 20 business days for that dispute process. In that period, consumers will have to submit credible evidence supporting why that data is inaccurate. For example, it's a judgment, you've paid it up, you're going to submit your proof of payments. The credit provider is going to submit their credible evidence to the credit bureau. If there is no credible evidence to support the listing, the credit bureau will delete it from your credit profile and that will have a positive impact on your credit record. Your credit profile is your responsibility. And now that you know the data science behind it, you have the power to have the perfect credit score.