Your CIBIL Report and CIBIL Transunion Score provides a testimony of your financial discipline to banks and financial institutions for approval of your loan or credit card application. A healthy CIBIL Report and a high CIBIL TransUnion Score indicates that you are managing your loans and credit relationships well and are financially savvy. It is therefore vital to understand the various elements of your credit report well.

One of the most crucial element of your credit report, which has a significant impact on your credit score, is the ''Days Past Due'' (DPD) information. This information is part of the “Accounts” section of your credit report and indicates how well you have been servicing your loan or credit card- Are you paying your loan EMIs/Credit Card bills on time each month? Have you missed payment of EMIs/ credit card bill? If yes by how many days and in which month?

The ''DPD'' indicates how many days a payment on a respective account has been delayed. Anything other than ''000'' and ''XXX'' reflecting in your ''DPD'' section would mean that you have missed payments on your loan or credit card account. Up latest 36 months of payment history (with the most recent month displayed first) is provided in the accounts section of your credit report. In order to understand ''DPD'' better, let's take an example of a loan whose payments started in March 2015. If the borrower misses a payment for 3 months from the month of April 2015, then the DPD shall reflect as follows on the borrower’s credit report:

DPD                 090    060      030       000       000

Month/Year   07-15   06-15   05-15   04-15   03-15

The above ''DPD'' information implies that the borrower has missed payments on a loan for 3 months or 90 days. The payments were missed in the month of April, May and June 2015. '000' indicates ''no days past due'' for that particular month and implies that you have been regular with the payments of your loan/ credit card.

'XXX' indicates that the member bank or credit institution has not reported information in this month to CIBIL on that loan /credit card account.

It is essential to understand that having DPD other that ''000'' or ''XXX'' on your CIBIL Report would imply that you have not been able to pay your loan or credit card dues regularly. This alerts the credit institutions as it gives them an indication of your inability to service the loan well. Therefore ensure that you never miss a payment on any loan or credit card account. All the payments must be made by the due date each month so that the DPD string on your report reflects ''000'' or ''XXX'' across all the months.

Ensure to maintain a healthy CIBIL Report and a high CIBIL Transunion Score in order to enjoy all the benefits associated with a good credit history.

(Contributed by Harshala Chandorkar, chief operating officer, CIBIL)