India has seen phenomenal growth in personal loans, credit cards and now BNPL in recent years. Thus, numerous websites and apps provide you free Cibil report every month. In this article, I share names of a few apps/websites that give you free Cibil report or score
How to get a free CIBIL report?
Numerous websites/apps give you free credit reports/scores either from CIBIL or from other credit bureaus. However, you don’t need to register with all of them. Here are a few that you can rely upon.
I rely on these 3 sources to get credit reports for me and my family
HDFC Bank – Free Cibil report every month
URL: HDFC CIBIL Report
HDFC Bank has a tie-up with CIBIL, the largest credit bureau in India to provide free cibil reports every month. You just need to register on their portal here and get your cibil report.
Positives:
- Open for non-HDFC customers too
- Cibil score refreshes every month
- The detailed report is available online
- The score simulator allows you to see the impact on your score in different scenarios
Negatives:
- The report cannot be downloaded
- No other bureau score/report is available.
- Your data is available with HDFC Bank, Thus, expect a few calls from them. However, honestly, I haven’t faced too many marketing calls from HDFC Bank.
OneScore App – Free CIBIL score and detailed Experian report every month
App download: OneScore app
OneScore app is an independent app that only provides credit scores and nothing else. They promise no spamming and no sharing of data with any third party. This is something that I appreciate about the app. But don’t forget that this app works as a feeder app to their OneCard credit card potential customers.
Positives:
- It’s a mobile app, so can access the score anytime
- Provides detailed report from Experian every month and CIBIL score
- App provides a few insights and suggestions on improving credit score
- App owned by OneCard. So, if your score is good, you will be eligible for OneCard. Just in case you don’t own OneCard, you can apply it from here
Negatives:
- Only the Cibil score is available not the report
- Expect marketing messages from the company for taking OneCard
Credit report from bureaus – Free detailed report once a year
Cibil report
Experian
Equifax
Highmark
RBI has mandated each bureau provide a detailed free credit report to individuals at least once a year. Thus, if you wish, you can download your credit reports from these bureaus and store them with you. Cibil also has a paid service where you can pay 1200 per year to access your score and detailed report anytime you like. Experian’s Credit Report is completely free of cost and there are no restrictions on the number of times you access your report throughout the year.
Pro-tip: Create a free account with Cibil. This allows you to receive SMS from Cibil whenever there is a change in your cibil score or there is an inquiry against you. However, you don’t get many details as to how much the score has changed, what led to the change or who did a credit check. Nonetheless, at least you are aware and can check the details next month when you access your free credit report.
Other reliable services to get free cibil score
ICICI Bank – Free for wealth customers; 440+taxes for other customers
ICICI Bank provides a free credit report facility to its Wealth customers. For other customers, it’s available at 440+taxes. I haven’t used this service simply because it is not free for me.
However, I believe ICICI Bank just pulls out the report and presents it to you. You should take it if it’s free for you.
SBI Card – Cibil score in the SBI Card app
SBI Card in 2020 started showing Cibil scores in the SBI Card app to all its customers. I remember seeing my cibil score once or twice through this app. Don’t think it gives access to the detailed report. Please correct me, if I am wrong here.
Free cibil report services that I avoid
Paisabazaar
Paisabazaar does a lot of marketing about their free cibil reports. However, the problem is once they get hold of your data, they spam you like anything. The same is also mentioned in their T&Cs in a flowery language.
Further, they can access your cibil report every month, whether you access Paisabazaar or not. That is, you may stop using the Paisabazaar website, but they will have access to your cibil report every month. You need to specifically opt out from their service on their portal.
That’s not all, once you register for their services, they can call/SMS you, despite you being on the DND list.
Paytm
Similar to Paizabazaar, Paytm also provides a free cibil score. Again the issue is, that they take permission to access your reports for 6 months even if you don’t access them. Further, they also take permission to share our data with their associates and partners, which results in frequent marketing calls/SMS/Whatsapp messages.
Further, the T&Cs are written in such small font that you cant read them properly. Plus, you need to read them on your mobile, that’s even more difficult.
Many other apps/websites provide free cibil reports; popular ones among them are Cred, Bajaj Finserv, Mobikwik, Freecharge etc. However, I haven’t used them.
FAQs
Will my score reduce if I access my credit score/report?
No. the Cibil score is not impacted when the individual access it. Cibil score is impacted only when a financial institution accesses your score for approving a loan or credit card.
Why should I keep checking my cibil score/report at regular interval
At times, financial institutes commit an error in reporting to bureaus. It can be as simple as not reporting a closed account as closed. Alternatively, it could be a case of misreporting such as reporting the payment as delayed or even reporting a loan against your name that you have never availed. Thus, you should check your credit score at regular intervals.
In such instances, you should get in touch with the financial institution and get it corrected.
What should I do, if there are loans/cards against my name that I don’t recognize?
You can dispute the ones that are misreported. For that, you need to log in to the CIBIL portal and go to Credit Report → Dispute Center.
Conclusion
Since our cibil score/credit score is the first check that most institutes do for any credit card or loan application; we should ensure that the reports are error-free. I recommend checking your cibil score/report once every 3-4 months using any of the free services mentioned above. I don’t see any merit in taking the paid subscription from Cibil for their premium services.
How often do you check your Cibil score? Which app/website do you use for the same? Do you know of any other apps/websites to get Cibil reports for free? Do share your inputs/thoughts in the comments below
Photo by rupixen.com on Unsplash
Disclaimer
In the interest of full disclosure, Credit Cardz may earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through some of the links in this post. However, opinions and views expressed here are of the author's alone and not those of the bank, credit card issuer, or anyone else and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
how do these apps liek onescore and freecharge get our cibil score updated every month when cibil itself only provides an updates once in a year with the free plan. Are these apps paying cibil or am i missing something?
These companies have commercial tieups with credit bureaus. pricing will be far different than what we pay to access our credit reports.