There is no Absa credit bureau. Absa Bank Limited is registered with the National Credit Regulator as a credit provider, NCRCP7 – the number is printed in the footer of every page on absa.co.za – and a credit provider is the opposite side of the transaction from a bureau. Absa submits data; a bureau stores it. Which side of that line your problem sits on decides which Absa number is worth dialling and which is a wasted call.
Problems Absa can act on
- An account Absa itself reported wrongly – a wrong balance, an arrears month you were not in arrears, a settled account still showing open. Absa corrects its own submission and the correction flows outward.
- A settlement letter you need in writing to prove an account is closed.
- An account opened in your name that is not yours. That is fraud, and it is the one case where speed matters most.
Problems Absa cannot act on
- Anything another lender reported. Absa cannot see, amend or remove it.
- A court judgment or an administration order. Those come off on their own terms and no bank shortens them.
- The score itself. A score is calculated by whoever is showing it to you, from the underlying data – there is no lever at the bank that moves it.
The distinction is worth holding on to, because a great deal of paid credit-repair advertising rests on blurring it. Nobody at a bank, and no company charging you a fee, can delete an entry that is accurate.
Which Absa channel to use
- Fraud, including an account or a loan taken out in your name: 0860 557 557, or +27 11 501 5089 from abroad. Answered 24 hours a day, every day
- A correction Absa needs to log formally: the Complaint Resolution Suite on 0800 41 41 41, weekdays 08:00 to 16:30, [email protected]. Use this one when a branch or a call centre agent has already said no
- General account questions: 0860 008 600, [email protected]
Put a correction request in writing even if you start it on the phone. [email protected] gives you a dated record and a reference, and a reference is what makes the difference if the matter has to go further later.
Finding out what is actually on your record
Absa cannot show you your credit record, because it does not hold it. The record sits with the bureaus the NCR licenses, and the NCR publishes the full list of them – name, registration number, telephone, e-mail and website – free on its own register at ncr.org.za. Look the bureau up there before you deal with it: an NCRCB number in the register is the difference between a licensed bureau and a company selling you a subscription to see your own data.
Absa Bank Limited is registration number 1986/004794/06, an authorised financial services provider and a registered credit provider, NCRCP7, with head office at Absa Towers West, 15 Troye Street, Johannesburg.