CALLCREDIT WELCOMES LEVELLING OF THIRD PARTY PLAYING FIELD

Callcredit has welcomed the news that the credit industry will have met the criteria laid down by Richard Thomas, Information Commissioner for third party data (TPD) compliance by 31 October 2004.

Callcredit, the UK's newest credit reference agency (CRA), has been TPD compliant since its inception in 2001.

Graham Lund, Callcredit's product development director, said:

"TPD was an issue for the industry at the time we were forming so it made sense to build compliance in from day one. In fact, we elected to be totally first party compliant from inception, until it became clearer how third party data would be used by lenders, and in what circumstances.

"While our competitors have been withdrawing data from their credit reports, we've been waiting to add new compliant third party data into ours. This has now enabled us to deliver Alert Decision, Alert Review and Household Override processing to our clients.

"It means from now on all the CRAs will be consistent in their use of TPD, which is good news for lenders and for consumers."