CREDIT BUREAU ON HUNT FOR PARTNERS
Wednesday December 20, 2006
But lukewarm response to planned tie-up with phone, retail finance companies
Chow Penn Nee
[email protected]WHETHER you settle your phone and utilities bills on time could determine how easily you get a bank loan in future - if the Credit Bureau Singapore
(CBS) gets its wish.
In what could be a boon to lower-income earners, the bureau, which counts banks and credit card companies among its members, hopes to rope in other organisations so as to provide a fuller picture of a person's credit-worthiness.
Today understands it is in talks with telcos, retail finance companies and stockbrokers, to provide information on their customers' payment histories. So banks, for instance, would be able to check whether a potential borrower has defaulted on his phone bill payments or interest-free instalments on retail purchases.
"CBS is trying to get telecom data on line, as well as retail finance companies, security houses and in the future, possibly utilities companies," said its general manager, Mr Mark Rowley.
Such records would come in useful when there is not much data available for certain demographics such as low-income earners, who would not have bank loan or credit card records.
"More data shared across industries usually leads to more credit being granted," he added. The beneficiaries would be lower income earners who want to borrow money, but would otherwise be rejected as banks do not have enough information on them.
Banks may soon be able to extend personal loans to about 450,000 more Singaporeans, if a government proposal to lower the minimum income requirement from $30,000 a year to $20,000 goes through.
Already, GE Money requires customers earning around $1,600 a month - who would not have credit bureau records - to furnish their recent utilities or telco bills when applying for an ezyCash loan.
But the three telco companies, while confirming that CBS had approached them, did not seem eager to share information with the bureau.
"At present, we are not considering the services as we already have in place an effective (internally-developed) credit risk management system,"
Mr Thomas Yip, StarHub's vice-president of Billing, Credit Control and Risk Management, told Today.
A SingTel spokesperson likewise said the telco did not plan to join the bureau. "We already have a well-defined credit management process.
Customers who default on payment after repeated reminders stand the risk of having their services terminated," she said. M1's spokesperson said they would review the proposal before making any decisions.
In February, Today had reported that stockbroking houses would either join the banks' credit information system or form one on their own. Currently, brokers are not able to tell how many credit lines a client has with other firms, and whether he has defaulted on his payment of share purchases.
Retail finance houses like Courts and Harvey Norman had not replied by press time.
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