Credit history or credit report is a record of an individual's or company's past borrowing and repaying, including information about late payments and bankruptcy. The term "credit reputation" can either used synonymous to credit history or to credit score.

This information is used by lenders such as credit card companies to determine an individual's or an entity's credit worthiness; that is, the means and willingness to repay an indebtedness. This helps determine whether to extend credit, and on what terms. With the adoption of risk based pricing on almost all lending in the financial services industry, this report has become even more important since it is usually the sole element used to choose the APR (annual percentage rate).

Definition from en.wikipedia.org/