New Delhi, April 21 -- In everyday life, we often use the terms credit score and credit report interchangeably to describe the evaluation issued by a credit bureau regarding our creditworthiness. While both serve as tools for lenders and financial institutions to assess an individual's or business's creditworthiness, they refer to two distinct aspects of credit evaluation.

A credit bureau in India, under the CICRA (Credit Information Companies Regulation Act), is required to generate a credit score for every borrower who has taken a loan from a regulated financial institution. Likewise, credit institutions are mandated to assess creditworthiness using this score along with other supporting measures and documents. The credit score is deri...