In India, the various provisions of CICRA cover the regulation of credit information business and also include responsibilities of the bureaus, rights and obligations of the credit institutions and safeguarding privacy rights of the individual. We can understand credit information about an individual at the CICs as a reflection of how he or she behaves with relation to his lender/s.
If he/she is a good borrower, there is a record of such repayments; else a record of defaults is built up. This is akin to reputational collateral which is used by CICs to provide a picture of the individual to a prospective lender.