Credit reference agency (kreditoplysningsbureau)
Also known as credit bureau, credit information agency, credit reference
A credit reference agency collects and passes on information about ability to pay — under rules that limit both what may be recorded and for how long.
- Supplies
- Credit reports and monitoring
- Regulated by
- Data protection rules
- Registration requires
- That the claim is undisputed
In practice
The agencies are private companies, and there is more than one. RKI is the best known in Denmark, but a search in one place is not a search everywhere — a customer with no adverse entry in one register may well have one in another.
What makes the agencies useful is the rules they work under. Registering a bad payer is not something a creditor can simply do. The claim has to be undisputed, the debtor has to have been warned, and the entry has to be removed again after a period or once the debt is paid. That is why an adverse entry means something — it is not merely a dissatisfied supplier’s opinion.
The same regulation is why an agency cannot tell you everything. If the debtor disputes the claim, it cannot be registered, however groundless the objection may look.
Where it commonly goes wrong
- Assuming a clean report means a good customer. It means nobody has recorded anything yet. The first entry always comes after the first person who did not get paid.
- Threatening registration to speed up payment. Registration has its own conditions, and a threat that cannot be carried out weakens the whole process.