The German acronym SCHUFA stands for Schutzgemeinschaft für allgemeine Kreditsicherung (General Credit Protection Association). The body is tasked with checking the credit worthiness of private individuals and disclosing this information to interested parties under a strict mantle of confidentiality. SCHUFA stores data on loans, leasing contracts and so on.

Black marks against an individual's name such as bounced cheques, arrears, suspension without pay and pending court judgements are all on the SCHUFA files. But the information is not held for longer than five years. Without SCHUFA it would not be possible to sort out a mobile phone contract over the phone within minutes, which is very Handy (Germans call mobiles Handys). It would be equally unfeasible to buy books or DVDs online without the vendor's having received near instantaneous approval from SCHUFA.

SCHUFA receives a small payment upon completion of each online check and employs statistical - mathematical models to calculate the probability of a complete repayment being made. Complex scoring criteria are utilised to construct a picture of the client's debt competence. When a citizen of the Federal Republic makes enquires regarding the taking out of a Kredit, or loan, SCHUFA is notified through the lender. This has been the case since May 2006 in the context of the Anfrage Kreditkonditionen agreement. The person does not even need to have taken out a loan - it is enough that he has made an enquiry for SCHUFA to store his details. And the details of the query are held for one year.

However it is possible, and quite legitimate, to bypass the attentions of these nosey parkers through the medium of an online comparison site. Here it is possible to compare online Kredit providers through the medium of a third party without any obligation to buy Kredit. SCHUFA stores data pertaining to over 60 million people. Apart from names and addresses, they hold all kinds of bank details, information about credit cards and other things. In fact the sheer quantity of information means that errors are unavoidable (although there have been no disasters to parallel Britain's lost social security data discs). These mistakes can lead to people being refused credit unfairly and when Germans feel this has happened they are free to query decisions, and can even do so online.

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