Nowadays, most of the payment experiences of individuals and legal entities are recorded. This negative information can be detrimental to you for various procedures such as renting an apartment or applying for financing.
In Switzerland, there are 3 main registers that finance banks and various organizations turn to when it comes to checking the creditworthiness of a potential customer.
These registers contain positive or negative information and are intended to prevent over-indebtedness and protect debtors and creditors.
- The Debt Collection Office
- The Crif
- The ZEK Register (Central Credit Register)
Banks and finance companies have the option of ordering these statements directly in order to find out the creditworthiness of the customer.
We will go over each database in detail in order to know how to differentiate them and know their specificities.
The Debt Collection Office
There are around 700 debt collection offices in Switzerland. The canton of Vaud has about ten of them. In particular, the debt collection office is responsible for:
- register debt collection requests and objections
- collect payments from debt collections and remit the amounts to creditors
- to execute wage garnishments or issue certificates of default of property
A debt collection, even if it has been paid, can be seen on the extract from the debt collection office. The cancellation of the lawsuit depends on the goodwill of the creditor. However, our Solvency department can take care of requesting the cancellation of paid or cancelled debt collection and also order your extract from the debt collection register.
Some creditors or collection offices may also charge a write-off fee for each lawsuit paid.
The ZEK (Central Credit Office)
The ZEK, or Association for the Management of a Central Credit Information Unit, is a database that collects creditworthiness information, whether positive, negative or neutral, concerning credits, leasing and credit cards.
The following are the main negative codes that can be entered in the ZEK:
- Refusals/rejections of applications
- Delayed/Late Payments
- Debt Collection/Prosecution Procedures
- Justified card blocking
- Total or partial losses
Just like the debt collection office, there may still be codes entered that are unjustified.
For each negative code and depending on its severity, a delay is provided for the code to be automatically deleted after the customer's situation returns to normal.
These periods range from 6 months to 3 years. For official information deemed more serious, such as the guardianship of a person, the time limits are up to 30 years.
We invite you to consult this article for more information on ZEK codes.
The Crif
Crif is an international company, operating in some fifty countries. This database is more general. It works to prevent fraud, identify risks and take care of address management. Some banks use this register to decide on loan conditions, such as the interest rate, for example.
A customer's Crif extract is scored with a score ranging from 250 to 600 (600 being the best score) and a color code that works like traffic codes (green, yellow, red).
In your Crif register, you will also see:
- Pending or paid lawsuits
- your old addresses in Switzerland
- other official information, such as losses or guardianships
How do I become solvent?
If you want to know if you are registered, do not hesitate to consult this article.
Our Solvable department offers the ZEKAVISTA service.
Here's what we offer with this service:
- We clean your credit data to make it positive
- We strike off your old debt collections
- We negotiate and change your negative credit codes with ZEK
- We delete the entries in the Crif register
- You will receive personal advice and direct telephone contact
It's not always easy to know where to start and how to proceed with these institutions, which is why we are here to help you.
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