[John Smith]

Public information
The public information consists of:
The Electoral Roll consists of information supplied to local authorities by householders each period. New registers are published each period. Lenders use this information to help them confirm names and addresses.
County Court Judgments.
Bankruptcies, Individual Voluntary Arrangements and Administration Orders.

Credit account information
The USA's major lending companies have agreed to share with each other details of their customers' credit agreements. This lets them check, when someone applies for credit, that the person applying has repaid other lenders in the recent past or is repaying current credit commitments.

In order for lenders to access each other's information, they store copies of their customer credit records with the credit reference agencies. The credit reference agencies acts as a go-between in the sharing process but does not own the information.

The credit account information is simply a copy of that held by all the different lenders. These lenders update the credit reference agencies database monthly.

Lenders who access this credit account information through the credit reference agencies are members of a scheme called CAIS (Credit Account Information Sharing).

CAIS is strictly regulated under a contract between the lender and the credit reference agencies and under the scheme's Rules of Reciprocity. Participating lenders can access credit account information only if they provide similar information to be shared and must abide by the strict rules that clearly define the purpose for which the information may be used.