National Hunter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
National Hunter is a British credit fraud checking agency that operates an "anti-fraud data sharing system", operated by Experian Decision Analytics,[1] on behalf of its members, around 90 British financial institutions, including banks, building societies, mortgage lenders and finance companies.[2] Information entered by applicants for credit within one of the member organisations is recorded in the system, and can be cross-checked against other applications.
For instance, a person applying for a loan with one company and stating their salary as £10,000 could have their application rejected if in a subsequent application for a different product from a different company they stated their salary as £100,000. The process is not fully automated in the way most credit scoring is – suspicious applications are flagged by National Hunter and then checked before an institution makes the decision to decline an application.[3] According to Barclaycard, "Every night, we send it almost all our card applications. Next morning, its computers send them back, either with OK or showing a potential fraud, If it's the latter, then we might decide to contact the applicant, although that may depend on other factors."[4]
Information security
Individuals have a statutory right to obtain a copy of the information held by the company about them, in accordance with the Data Protection Act. National Hunter recommends applicants request their credit report as a first step in finding out why they have been rejected for credit but the credit report will not show the data that is on National Hunter, indicating why a lender thinks a customer's application is fraudulent.