Australian Credit Data (ACD) is an Australian operated and managed technology provider delivering services to credit providers & credit bureaus to support their comprehensive reporting requirements. In particular, we provide services related to the processing of disputes and corrections to credit information.

ACD operates independently of any credit bureau ownership. This allows ACD to actively service and support all credit bureaus in Australia, delivering benefits to credit providers through a more efficient correction handling process.

Changes to the Privacy Act that were introduced in March 2014 have changed the way a consumer’s request to have information on their credit file needs to be reviewed. The essence of these changes is to increase the rights of the consumer in the correction process and deliver improved dispute resolution and complaint handling if the consumer feels information has been misrepresented on their credit report. 

Privacy reform also created an environment where the volume of correction requests on credit reports will increase. The main drivers include the greater volume of data held on a credit report as the industry transitions towards Comprehensive Credit Reporting (CCR) and the availability of free credit reports.

The Act has also redefined the obligations of credit providers and credit bureaus and the way that they must process correction requests, increasing the complexity and frequency of sharing data across multiple parties, and creating a more stringent regulatory framework in which these issues need to be resolved.

ACD addresses these issues as it establishes a case and allows all parties to the correction request to contribute information about the issue, as well as any ultimate resolution. Its internal processes ensure that a case is properly addressed and resolved in a timely manner and that all parties remain compliant throughout.

Consumers benefit from being able to register their dispute in a secure system that will protect their personal information. The dispute creation process results in consumer credit information being created in a consistent format that assists their navigation of a credit report, which can otherwise be a highly technical and confusing exercise that is daunting to many consumers.

Using the ACD Corrections Platform means consumers do not have to write lengthy emails which often do not address the problem with the credit report. By conforming to a uniform correction standard, ACD improves the quality in the information that is then presented to a credit provider or credit bureau which assists the investigation process. This leads to overall improvements in dispute resolution response times. 

Consumers also benefit from being able to create and manage their own dispute. ACD’s consumer portal allows them to track the status of their dispute in real time reflected by status changes as the investigation is processed within the system.  

No. ACD is a technology services provider. We do not have access to credit reports held by credit bureaus or any credit information that is held by a credit provider. Our role is to allow a consumer to securely create their dispute and to pass this onwards to credit providers or credit bureaus to be assessed. Any determination about whether a correction should be made is performed wholly by the responsible entity.

Credit bureaus have been involved in the design and build of the ACD Corrections Platform. That is, the system has been specifically designed to conform to their requirements to process the varying types of corrections to credit reports and to allow credit providers to share in those system gains.

For credit providers, ACD represents the supported channel for processing corrections at Equifax and Dun & Bradstreet. We process a significant portion of their respective correction volumes, as the credit bureaus seek to deliver security improvements to the handling of consumer data between the parties that may be associated with the corrections process. 

Current processes used across the industry rely greatly on the processing of correction requests via email. This means that consumer data may shared between credit providers via email. As well as being inefficient, this process represents a high risk of non-compliance with all acceptable  information security standards and is an area that is acknowledged by industry as requiring improvement.

ACD allows communication to be made intra-system and without using email. All parties to a case can contribute their consumer credit data in a secure channel. 

The ACD Corrections Platform is a sophisticated workflow management platform that automates many of the requirements for credit providers and credit bureaus in their handling of correction issues. Some of the features available to ACD subscribers are:

• A complete network of Australian credit providers, ensuring that corrections passed between parties will reach their intended target
• Process all types of disputes based on all available data on a credit report
• Automate all communications, supporting bespoke communications & branding for each credit provider or credit bureau that subscribes to ACD
• Online consumer self service portal allowing consumers to process their own corrections and track the status of their own cases (optional)
• Correction inventory management that tracks a case against its compliance milestones, delivering escalation and alerts when required
• High degrees of customization enabling the solution to meet unique internal operational structures and processes
• A secure, cloud-based platform requiring little implementation effort

Credit bureaus use ACD to originate and process correction requests. They also use ACD as their “archive” to store data against the case. This means that each dispute is complete and the credit bureau also passes the outcome of each investigation through to ACD which is then stored against the case and serves as a complete record of the correction request.

With this complete information, a credit provider is able to derive a number of benefits including being able to send automated, accurate communication to the consumer, or improve the External Dispute Resolution process as they willl have aggregated all information against a dispute forming a case history.

When using ACD, you will also be using a system that has been configured to meet the specific requirements of the credit bureau to process all different types of correction. This means that by completing the workflows within ACD, you will be responding in the most efficient means possible, therefore reducing manual handling, error rates and the need to reprocess information.