MANILA, Philippines – The country’s credit information system will go on live by the first quarter next year as banks are expected to complete the turnover of their data to the government.
“Most of the big banks, we already have their current data. They are in various stages of compliance,” Credit Information Corp. (CIC) president Jaime Garchitorena told reporters.
“I think they will be able to comply by the end of this year,” he added.
Signed in 2008, RA 9510 mandated the creation of CIC to facilitate the collection of credit information from the public and corporations.
The aim is to assist companies such as banks in surveillance of credit worthiness of their clients.
So far, a total of 20 million personal records are already in the hands of CIC, ready to be shared to four existing credit bureaus now operating in the country.
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They are local-based CIBI Information Inc., South Africa’s Compuscan, US-based TransUnion Information Solutions Inc. and Crif Corp. Philippines.
The bureaus are supposed to source data from CIC to generate credit scores and sell the same to lending companies for credit investigation purposes.
CIC and the credit bureaus have signed recently a memorandum of support with Microfinance Data Sharing System (MIDAS) to share microfinance data and be put under CIC system.
That will provide an additional 4.6 million individual records to the CIC, which currently covers banks, cooperatives and recently with telecommunication companies.
“The information will help build a database that when shared will allow banks to better rate the credit rating of possible borrowers,” Garchitorena said.
“In the process, those with higher credit score provided by the bureaus may get lower interest rates on their loans,” he said.
The credit bureaus, meanwhile, highlighted the need for more education on the importance of a credit system.
“Some of those where we get data into still do not know about the importance of information and they tend to be more conservative in sharing as a result,” said TransUnion chief operating officer Geryll Pastor.
CIBI Information Inc. business development head Alvin Alquinto agreed. “There is a need to educate the people about the importance of data,” he said.
