Payment Breaks

In the normal course of events, if regular principal and interest payments were being made, the amount recorded in the “Outstanding Balance” column reported to the Central Credit Register would decrease each month. See sample credit report.

If, for example, a lender had agreed a payment break with no payments expected to be made at all for a period of three months, starting April, then:

• The lender will not report any “Number of payments past due” to the Central Credit Register for April, May and June;
• The lender will not report a “restructure” event to the Central Credit Register for April, May and June;
• As no payments are being made during the payment break period, the “Outstanding Balance” recorded will not decrease for April, May and June.

A lender viewing a credit report will see the most recent 24 months of credit history in relation to each loan contained on the credit report. This will include the “Outstanding Balance” column.

While there is no payment break flag or data field contained in the credit report, it would be possible to infer from this information the period for which a payment break was likely in operation as the outstanding balance will not decrease.