What is your AECB credit score and how do you check it?

Your credit score is a number that sums up your history of paying loans, cards, bills and cheques in the UAE. Banks use it when you apply for a card or a higher limit.

Who keeps your credit record?

Al Etihad Credit Bureau, which calls itself Etihad Credit Bureau on its website. It was set up in 2012 under the 2010 federal law on credit information, issued its first credit report in 2014 and its first credit score in 2017.¹ It collects data from more than 115 information providers, including banks, finance companies, telecom companies, utilities, courts and government bodies.¹

Banks must report your data to it, and must tell you that this record may limit your access to credit in future.²

What range is your score in?

Under its current model, Credit Score 3i, a person with an established credit history gets a Mature Score from 300 to 850. A person with little history, including someone new to the country, gets a New-to-Credit Score from 300 to 650.³ The bureau says the effect of the new model on any one person’s score depends on their profile.³

What affects your score?

The bureau lists six factors:³

• how much of your credit limits you have used
• your recent use of loans, credit cards and other credit
• your recent applications for new credit
• how consistently you pay on time
• your history of late or overdue payments
• your record of honoured and returned cheques

Credit Score 3i uses up to 36 months of trended information.³

How do you get your score or report?

Prices and contents are from the bureau’s pages.³⁴ You can buy them on the bureau’s web portal or app, or through TAMM or DubaiNow after signing in with UAE Pass.⁵ Reports are digital and carry no stamp or signature.⁴

How do you fix a mistake on your report?

Use the bureau’s free Data Correction service within 30 days of buying the report. Attach your Emirates ID and any supporting documents. The bureau passes the request to the bank or company that supplied the data, and says your history should update within 10 working days.⁶ If the provider rejects the correction, you can register a data correction dispute through the bureau’s contact centre.⁶

Banks have their own deadline. A bank must correct an error it reported within 7 business days of becoming aware of it, and report a correction you asked for within 7 business days of your request once it has verified it.²

Buy your report before you apply for a card, and check every account on it. If a bank will not correct an error, complain to the bank and then Sanadak.

The small print

• The bureau’s legal name, shown on its pages, is AlEtihad Credit Bureau P.J.S.C. It names the 2020 amendment to the credit information law as Credit information law 8/2020.⁵¹
• Bank correction deadlines are Consumer Protection Standards clause 6.1.5.2. The duty to report and inform is clause 6.1.5.1.²