Government vows to support credit bureaus, agencies
The Malawi Government says it will continue supporting the operations of credit bureaus in Malawi because they not only benefit shareholders, but also assist people who are unable to access credit.
Deputy Minister of Finance Cornelius Mwalwanda said this on Thursday in Blantyre when he joined Credit Data (CRB) in the commemorating 500 000 records the credit rating bureau has data has managed to attain and also the launch of be the first to know campaign.
“We are very delighted that Credit Data CRB has taken an initiative to let the owners of information know what it is all about them.
“We do not want scenarios where a borrower should fail to access credit because of a meagre balance of an obligation which might not have been updated or was forgotten” he said.
Mwalwanda said he is confident that the attaining of 500 000 records by Credit Data CRB, the country’s ranking on doing business might changed as the figure represents approximately 40 percent of the available credit data which will attract investors into the country.
Credit Data CRB managing director Patricia Mwase said the firm is grateful to all the sectors that took part in making them achieve the 500 000 records.
“Our operational target was to get 750 data entries to get us operational, but we have to-date managed to get 500 000 records which to us is a greatest achievement and we do not take it for granted” she said.
Mwase said their data bank is expected to grow to an estimated 700 000 in the coming weeks, particularly with the submission of data from government utility firms, university students trust loans, city rates and parastatals following the initiative government has taken to gazette as well as give written instructions to government departments to start submitting date to credit bureaus.
She said the be the first to know campaign has been established following government initiative towards the establishment of credit bureaus which was to encourage credit information sharing.
“As we celebrate the attainment of 500 000 records, we do not want to be the only ones celebrating. As such, we would like to ask the owners of this information to partake in the celebration by asking them to be the first to know what we are keeping about them,” said Mwase.
Credit Data CRB was licensed by the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) on November 17 2011 and set up its operations in 2004 with a mission to seal the gap of credit issues in Malawi by offering credit reference, debt collection and trading services.
I for one has always been of the view that if we want ordinary consumers and businesses have greater access to finance we need to have reliable credit bureaus. The problem though as I have always argued is that in absence of the national identity numbers for the citizens it remains a challenge to track credit active consumers as people can easily change details i.e. names which as it has been the cases with passports etc.
Credit bureaus not only assist credit providers to know who they are dealing with so that they can price their product accordingly but also it does assist the consumers themselves to know heir profile in a event they want to apply for credit should they want to request one.
At the moment its very expensive to borrow in Malawi because the banks are painting almost every consumer with he same brush as high risk in he absence of reliable credit profile data
It has always been beyond my comprehension as to why our govt doesn’t place much emphasis on rolling out the national identity . This will help us a lot when it comes to elections and proper planning . We cannot talk of developing if there’s no tangible growth of the private sector. Private sector can only grow if they have access to capital at reasonable repayment rates to grow heir business