Information about the register

The Positive credit register contains information about private individuals’ loans and income and about loans granted to natural persons other than consumers, which include loans granted to business name entrepreneurs or agricultural operators, for example.

The objective of the register is to:

prevent households from taking on too much debt
improve the lenders’ ability to test the loan applicants’ creditworthiness
help individuals manage their finances better
provide reliable information on the credit market
make it easier to monitor and supervise the credit market.

The activities of the register are laid down in the Act on the Positive Credit Register. The controller is the Finnish Tax Administration’s Incomes Register Unit.

The Act on the Positive credit register (Laki positiivisesta luottotietorekisteristä 739/2022) (finlex.fi) (link to Finnish)

Frequently asked questions

The main purpose of the register is to prevent households from taking on too much debt. Private individuals can view up-to-date information about their loans in the register and set a voluntary ban on credits for themselves free of charge. Also, lenders can better assess the loan applicant's ability to repay the loan when they receive up-to-date data on the applicant's loans and income from the register.

As a rule, the register is available 24/7 throughout the year. As in all IT systems, however, the Positive credit register also has occasional service or maintenance breaks, but these will be announced in advance.

The register is positive because it does not show ‘negative’ credit information, such as data about payment defaults or recovery by enforcement. The register’s name is enacted by law.

The Tax Administration was selected because we already have experience in building, introducing and maintaining a corresponding information system, i.e. the Incomes Register.

The credit register has an increased level of information security. This means that the data is stored and processed in a highly protected environment.

Payment default entries and negative credit information are not stored in the Positive credit register. They can be found in commercial credit registers as before. In other words, the Positive credit register contains only loans granted to you and your income data.