OREANDA-NEWS. So concludes Uniastrum Bank after analyzing feedback from a five-month survey on its website

Over 600 visitors to the Uniastrum site took part in the survey, which ran from February to June this year. 85% of respondents said they'd never bothered to review their credit history, 4% said they simply weren't interested, and only 10% confirmed that they'd checked it.

Uniastrum Bank, however, insists that it pays to keep tabs on your credit history. For one thing, it could make getting a loan much easier, and could also prevent you from falling victim to fraud if personal documents such as identity cards have ever been lost in the past. Another good reason for running a credit history check is that it could explain why a bank refuses to issue a loan without any obvious good reason.

There are various ways of checking your credit history. One is by visiting a branch of Uniastrum Bank, which since 2012 has had a working relationship with the National Bureau of Credit Histories (NBCH), Russia's biggest credit history agency. All that's required is for you to submit your passport confirming you to be a Russian citizen, fill out a form and pay the respective fee. Within five minutes you will be issued with your credit report.

“Since we started our partnership with NBCH we've had several thousand people come to us to find out their credit history,” says Susanna Uzunyan, member of Uniastrum's Management Board and head of the Retail Product Design and Development Division. “It's clear that this service is becoming increasingly popular, not least because it gives borrowers a greater chance of securing a loan, maybe even at a lower interest rate. But an equally important factor for borrowers is that the information that banks send to a credit history agency has to be 100% accurate and reliable, which means that borrowers would be wise to monitor their credit histories. Anyone with an active credit history should, in my view, check it out at least once every quarter.”