Did you have a loan or credit card in Romania and failed to pay them on time? Do you know this can affect your credit score and you might be mentioned in the Credit Bureau (Biroul de Credit)?
Read below to find out more about the Romanian Credit Bureau! And if you need to be removed from the credit bureau, you can write to us at office@rrpb.ro or call us at +40 755 606 979 to find out how we can help you.
What is the Credit Bureau?
The Credit Bureau is a company founded in 2004 by a number of banks from Romania, in order to collect all the credit history of Romanian citizens in one place.
In other words, the Credit Bureau contains information about all the bank loans and credit cards that you ever had, their value, if you had any delays in your payments, but also your personal credit score.
The moment you try to access a credit, all this information is analyzed by the respective bank or non-banking financial institution. Based on your credit history, you will either receive the credit or not. A person with bad credit history represents a high risk for the bank and most probably they won’t be able to obtain the credit, as opposed to someone who has a positive history in the Credit Bureau.
Who can make registrations in the Credit Bureau?
Only banks and non-banking financial institutions (IFNs) can make registrations in the Credit Bureau.
Companies who deal with recovering unpaid debt (Kruk, Topfactoring etc.) cannot make registrations in the Credit Bureau, given that their sole purpose is to recover debt, not to offer loans.
What can be registered in the Credit Bureau?
The Credit Bureau contains positive information from your credit history (e.g. the fact that you made your credit payments on time), but also negative information, which are usually the most important ones.
Negative information are mainly payment delays of over 30 days, which are mentioned with marks from 1 to 6 according to the gravity of the delay. If you had a payment delay of just 29 days, this delay will not be registered in the Credit Bureau.
Your credit history determines your credit score, which is a number on the first page of the Credit Bureau report. This score can vary over the course of time, being either lowered or risen based on your behavior as a debtor. If you never had a credit or you were credited and missed some payments, your score will be lower. But if you made your payments on time, then your credit score will be higher.
Are the shopping cards noted in the Credit Bureau?
Yes, shopping cards are generally true forms of lending, so it is noted in the Credit Bureau.
This is one of the questions we get most often from our customers, because their credit conditions are not clearly communicated when they receive shopping cards. Many of them do not even know the bank or the IFN that lends them. Attention, not the physical or online store credits you (Altex, Flanco, Emag), but the banking or non-banking institution they collaborate with (Provident, Cetelem, etc.)
How do I find out if I have bad credit history?
You can find out your credit history by requesting a Credit Report, based on your Personal Identification Number (CNP).
You can obtain a credit report in two different ways:
- create an online account on www.birouldecredit.ro, by following the steps on the website
- ask for a credit report via post or email from the Credit Bureau. You can do this alone or you can ask a lawyer, who can obtain this report for you based on a power of attorney.
Can I get deleted/deregistered from the Credit Bureau if I have negative payment history?
Negative mentions in the Bureau are automatically deleted 4 years after the last unpaid debt (not since the credit was accessed or since the first credit payment).
If you want to obtain a new banking loan and it is not an option to wait all those 4 years, it is possible to request the deletion/deregistration of the mentions in the Credit Bureau which were made illegally and for which you haven’t been correctly notified by the bank.
If the above procedure does not work, you can also file a complaint in court for the removal of the illegal registrations. Unfortunately, a lawsuit in Romania takes a very long time, up to one or even two years if we also include the appeal phase.
Is the Credit Bureau violating the General Data Protection Regulation or rights to personal life?
No, the existence of the Credit Bureau itself doesn’t infringe GDPR or your personal rights. As we mentioned above, these registrations are a fast and safe way for the banks to evaluate your payment history, in order to decide if they want to offer you a loan or not.
However, registrations for which you haven’t been legally notified or other banking errors are illegal and should be deregistered from the Credit Bureau.
And do not forget! If you need to be deregistered from the Romanian credit bureau, you can write to us at office@rrpb.ro or call us at +40 755 606 979 to find out how we can help you!
If you would like to address more questions or if you need a legal consultation, you can contact us at office@rrpb.ro or by accessing our site www.rrpb.ro for more information.
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