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

3D-printed oil pump jacks and a Saudi Arabian flag appear in this illustration taken March 2, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
Dado Ruvic

Saudi Arabia is giving long-term oil customers the option of receiving their allocations for April via the Red Sea port of Yanbu as it prepares for lengthy disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.

Buyers who choose Yanbu will only get a portion of their monthly supply due to constraints on how much crude the pipeline to the port can carry, said traders who have been informed by state-run Saudi Aramco. The other option is to receive oil from the Persian Gulf, but at the risk of not getting any if the Strait remains closed, said the traders, who asked not to be named as they’re not allowed to speak to media. 

Aramco, the world’s biggest oil exporter, shipped 7.2 million barrels of crude last month, before Iran effectively blocked Hormuz, most of which was exported from its Gulf terminals of Ras Tanura and Juaymah. The Saudis have a 5 million barrel-a-day pipeline that runs across the country to the Red Sea, although export capacity at Yanbu may be smaller than that. 

Aramco didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment outside regular business hours.

The Saudis typically sell all of their oil via long-term contracts, the bulk of which goes to Asia. Sinopec, China’s biggest refiner, is cutting run rates by 10 per cent to cope with the shortages, while Japan has started to release crude from its national reserves. 

The choices reflect uncertainty over how long the conflict in West Asia will last and when Hormuz might reopen. US President Donald Trump’s shifting explanations of why the US went to war has left allies and adversaries unsure when he’ll seek to end it, and even if he does, Iran has shown little willingness to go along.

If the war continues, the traders said that oil loaded at Yanbu and headed to Asia would likely be marketed on a delivered basis — which means Aramco handles the transport logistics — rather than being sold on the usual loading basis, where customers arrange the shipping themselves. The oil that refiners are being offered via Yanbu is only the Arab Light grade, they said.

Aramco has been ramping up shipments via Yanbu since the beginning of the war, now into its third week. The Saudi producer has also taken the unusual step of offering crude loaded from the port through spot market tenders. However, this is the first time it’s offering contracted supply from the Red Sea terminal.

Beyond Asia, some European refiners have reported receiving less contractual volumes of crude from Aramco. One major processor received no volumes for loading next month, while a another was allocated less than what was requested.

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Published on March 16, 2026