Read Loretta’s new post in Living in Taiwan, got a little off topic, edited what I posted to post the question here. I apologize if this has been covered in the Credit in Taiwan thread (I scanned through it and only saw reference to credit cards).
I refreshed my memory on how credit works back home.
consumerinfo.com/n/whatscdt.htm
Now I’m wondering how exactly it works here (for locals, since it looks like “we” can’t have any).
So who are the credit reporting agency? Are there any?
Yes, there are such things. And they do cover foreigners if you have a credit card here, for example.
I once applied to a bank for a credit card and they called me back to say ‘But you have cards with Bank X and Bank Y… and you haven’t been paying your bills on time’
They were right about the first part. The second was because I left the country for two months and the normal standing instructions were not honoured by my bank once my employer told them I wasn’t working there any longer (even though there was plenty of $$$ in the account). :fume:
So, as in other countries, the information isn’t always accurate or complete and mistakes made by banks will mess up your credit rating without you knowing about it until you hit a problem.
But basically…
[list=]there are these credit reporting agencies,
some but not all banks report to them, and
they cover non-Taiwanese too.[/list]
Which makes even more of a mockery of all the reasons why foreigners find it so hard to get credit and have to put up with the stupid new rules.
Yep, there is a centralised credit system, at least for credit cards anyway. And yes, as a foreigner you can still have a credit rating. Of course it could just be that there are loopholes in the system they haven’t thought to close yet…
So who are these agencies and who runs them?