FREE! FREE! FREE! Get your Credit Report for free!

The topic of this post, if you haven't guessed by now, is how to get your free credit report.
Before I go into how to get a free credit report, do read up what a credit report is, in this post.
If you already know what a credit report is, go right ahead to access your credit report for free.

I did not know that every individual is entitled to a Free Full Credit Report (FFCR) for each calendar year (Jan to Dec), starting January 2017. The RBI has declared this in a notification posted on September 2016. You can read it here.
LINK : https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=10590&Mode=0

It is surprising how slow information disseminates even in this era of social networks and digital connectivity. Recently, I happened to be at a HDFC ATM and the following ad on the screen is how I came to know of the free credit report thing. A colleague had mentioned this to me a couple of days back, but I waited to see where I would come across this, without searching for it.

I have received SMSes and emails from almost every bank that I have an account in, asking me to buy a credit report. The charges were generally in the region of INR 300 to 500. But not one of my banks informed me, that I was eligible for one free full credit report from every credit bureau, every year. But that I guess is what banks are about, making money at the expense of their customers!

As you already know, there are 4 credit bureaus in India. They are CIBIL, Equifax, Experian and CRIF HighMark. You can access the links I have provided at the end of this post, to get your credit reports from either one of them, or all of them if you so wish. I would recommend getting a credit report from CIBIL, since CIBIL is the oldest and therefore the most widely used credit bureau in the Indian banking scene.

Till now, the credit bureaus were basically selling your data back to you. But thanks to RBI, now you can access your credit report for free to check for discrepancies. These credit bureaus may not make it very easy for you to get your credit report, since it is free and they don't get to make money off it.
Equifax, for example, asks you to download an app before you can request a credit report. Their process is so complicated they have a process note for it. CRIF HighMark keeps reminding you to pick a paid one instead. CIBIL turned out to be pretty straight forward.