Soft Inquiry
Full form: Soft Pull
CreditA soft inquiry is a credit check that does not affect your CIBIL score. Includes: you checking your own credit report, pre-approved credit card offers, background checks by employers, and insurance companies checking credit for premium pricing. Completely harmless to your score.
In detail
Common soft inquiries:nChecking own CIBIL report: free, no score impact -- do this regularlynPre-approved offers: banks check your credit for marketing purposes -- not a formal applicationnEmployment background checks: some companies check credit as part of hiringnInsurance underwriting: some insurers use credit data for pricingnnKey point: soft inquiries appear in your report's inquiry section but only you can see them (not potential lenders). Lenders can only see hard inquiries.nnRBI mandated: each bureau must provide one free full credit report per year to individuals.
Formula
Real-life example
Rohan checks his CIBIL score on CIBIL.com (soft inquiry, zero impact). He sees 3 hard inquiries from banks he applied to over the past year (each lowered score slightly). He decides to wait 6 months before applying for a new credit card, allowing score to recover to 780+ before applying for a premium card that requires 750+.