Lesson 1 of 3 · 5 min
The number lenders check first
Four RBI-licensed bureaus watch how you repay and boil it down to a number between 300 and 900 — and your salary is nowhere in the file they keep.
Before any bank or lending app gives you a rupee, it asks a credit bureau about you. India has four — TransUnion CIBIL, Experian, Equifax and CRIF High Mark — each licensed by RBI.
Lenders report every loan and card you hold to all four. Each bureau boils that history into a score between 300 and 900. Higher means you look safer to lend to, and the number decides not just yes-or-no but often the rate you are offered.
Sort it
1 / 6
Swipe: does this hurt a credit score, or not?
Paying a card bill 45 days late
Quick check
Why can your Experian score and your CIBIL score differ?
Five things do nearly all the work: whether you pay on time (the biggest by far), how much of your card limit you use, how long you have held credit, your mix of secured loans and unsecured borrowing, and how many lenders have pulled your file recently.
Notice what is absent: your salary. Income is not on a credit report at all — the score measures behaviour, not wealth.
Check yourself
1 / 3
Kabir asks
Your Experian score reads 742 and your CIBIL score reads 731. What does that gap mean?
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