Credit Header Results - How to Read

If configured service is to use Australian Credit Header Data as a potential matching source for KYC checks, then there must be an awareness of your obligations under section 35C of the AML/CTF Act 2006.

If the full name, address, and or date of birth on file at the credit bureau does not match the details supplied, then the customer must be informed that they have the right to review and update their details with the bureau in question.

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Critical Notes

  1. Just because the customer doesn’t have matching data at the credit bureau, does not mean the overall KYC check has failed. It’s just the one possible matching source and is often just an out-of-date address.

  2. This also does NOT mean the customer has failed a credit check of any kind. Checking to see if personal details match those on file at the bureau has zero impact on a customer’s credit history or creditworthiness.

How to determine if you have to let the customer know?

There are 2 ways information is passed that a mismatch may have occurred. These will be found in the response from a CreateCheckEntity or UpdateCheckEntity API response (or also in the result of a GET /entity/checks response).

In the entityProfileResult clause

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Note

The following section will only apply if using entity profiles/recipes.

In the entityProfileResult clause of a response, there's a section called creditHeaderFailures

"creditHeaderFailures" : [ 
    "Equifax" 
],

In there, there will be name(s) of the bureau(s) that returned a mismatch result. It is possible for more than one entry to be available in the array if there is more than one credit bureau in the configured source cascade.

Valid values include:

  • Equifax
  • Experian
  • others upon request

In the checkSummary clause

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Note

This following section will apply in all cases

In the checkSummary clause of a response, the following keys would be found in the CheckResults Key Value Pair Array:

KvpKeyKvpTypeKvpValuesNotes
Important.CreditBureauMatch.XXXBooleanTrue / FalseIndicates a match/fail with a credit header source that may require notification be sent to the customer.

If set to true, the match was successful

If set to false, the match failed and the customer may need to be notified of this fact.

The XXX would be replaced with the reporting bureau. Valid values are:
_ Equifax
_ Experian

There are other bureaus available as well.

It is possible for there to be more than one of these, depending on how your failover/cascade works.

More information on this and other KVPs in the CheckResults array are available here: Understanding CheckSummary Results