National Hunter

National Hunter (NH) is the smallest of the four credit reference agencies (also known as credit bureaus) in the UK. It was set up in 1993 by MCL software of southport which is now a subsidiary of Experian (another credit reference agency in the UK).

National Hunter is a more specific credit agency, it specializes in anti-fraud. It does this by sharing application data with the ~90 financial institutions that are members.

When somebody makes a credit application to one of the financial institutions that is a member of National Hunter the data will be logged. When the same person makes another credit application the data is logged and then cross checked against the existing data. If there are discrepancies then this sends a warning flag to the financial institutions – this will cause these institutions to manually review your application for credit before approving or denying your application.

For example, let’s say John is searching for a mortgage loan. He applies for £75,000 credit from bank A, when he applies they ask him for his yearly salary. John says that he earns £25,000 per annum. This information is sent and then stored with National Hunter. Bank A then declines John’s application for other reasons. John then applies for a £75,000 loan with Bank B, they ask him his yearly salary. Worried that his yearly salary was the reason he was denied from Bank A for a loan, he decides to say that he actually earns £40,000 per year. This information is added to National Hunter and cross checked against the old data. Because John’s data does not match up, his account is flagged for manual review by Bank B. Bank B then questions John about this discrepancy and John is unable to explain his wage increase, bank B then denies John for this loan.

Under the Data Protection Act of 1998 national individuals have the right to access all data which is able to be identified as theirs, as such National Hunter makes this information available to the general public. If you would like to see what information National Hunter has on you then click here for further instructions. It should be noted that they charge a fee of £10, which is five times the amount that the other agencies charge to view a credit report.

As such it’s recommended that you get your credit reports from Experian, Equifax & CallCredit first and then get a fraud report from National Hunter if you’re still unsure as to why you are being declined for credit.

Website: http://www.nhunter.co.uk/