Movement of credit score over a two-year period can give lenders better insights into a prospective borrower’s credit behaviour than a point in time score. Keeping this in view, credit information company (CIC) Equifax India has come up with a product that tells lenders how a prospective borrower’s credit score has moved over the last eight quarters.
This product is aimed at helping lenders with better borrower selection as well as reducing the risk of delinquency.
Currently, when lenders pull a credit information report from a CIC, they get a three-digit customer credit score, which is a point in time representation of his/her creditworthiness.
Aditya B Chatterjee, Managing Director, Equifax India, observed that the handicap of a credit score is that it’s a point in time representation of a customer’s credit behaviour.
“Suppose a lender taps the bureau, pulls a prospective customer’s credit score and the score comes to 800 out of 900. So, this is a wonderful score. But what it doesn’t tell the lender is what has been the trend of the score – whether it has gone up from 750 to 800 or gone down from 850 to 800.
“If a customer’s credit score is at 800, but it has come down from 850. The downward pattern indicates a risk. The standalone score never tells the lender that,” Chatterjee said.
So, the innovation that Equifax India has come up with is that instead of giving a point in time credit score, it now give trends in credit score movement. Chatterjee underscored that the trend in credit score movement gives more richer information, based on which the lenders can underwrite better.
Equifax India introduced the credit score trend offering for lenders a couple of months back. It is now trying to make it more comprehensive by giving lenders insights into the proportion of secured and unsecured loans in a borrower’s overall loan outstanding.
Published on March 16, 2026
