More than a year after its establishment, Creditinfo Guyana is still not quite where it wants to be in terms of its targeted goals, though its Chief Executive Officer Judy Semple-Joseph told Stabroek Business earlier this week that some services are available.
Those services, she said, are critical to the overall objectives of the bureau, and include creating a more convivial business climate and improving access to finance for businesses.
“If we may not yet be quite where we want to be in terms of providing the suite of services that we eventually will, we have certainly not been standing still,” Semple-Joseph told Stabroek Business in an interview on Tuesday.
Since receiving its operating licence from the Bank of Guyana in August 2013, Creditinfo Guyana has rolled out the SeeRisk Report, an international report for business that offers a decision-making mechanism for local companies and individuals who need to conduct business transactions with entities in foreign countries. The report provides sufficient information on the other party to substantiate claims relating to financial stability and ability to service agreements and provides a firm foundation for decisions on credit lines and other common facilitating trade mechanisms.
Information provided in the SeeRisk Report on foreign firms might include business performance, annual turnover, information on existing court judgments against the company and information on any bankruptcy proceedings. SeeRisk also provides credit reports that can assess the creditworthiness of persons associated with the company and gauge the wisdom of doing business with an overseas-based individual in situations where large sums of money or goods make mutual trust imperative. “We believe that real support for the business sector can best be measured by the extent of their access to powerful business tools such as the SeeRisk Business Report,” Semple-Joseph told Stabroek Business.
And according to the CreditInfo Head, the agency is also in a position to provide Clearance Reports which she said “enables subscribers to obtain valuable clearance from the Credit Bureau through our assurance that the subject of enquiry has no defaults recorded against their name in our database.”
A key challenge it faces is the sharing and consent implications of obtaining and using data. Semple-Joseph said that while the bureau had made “significant inroads” in terms of establishing relationships with local commercial banks and various other financial institutions, the provisions of the Credit Reporting Act of 2010 dictate that express consent be given before financial information can be shared with the bureau. “In some instances, customers have been slow in providing consent. What we need is a legislative environment that allows for more efficient but responsible access to information,” Semple-Joseph said.
She said Jamaica had made “significant strides” in growing its Credit Bureau, since that country was not bound by rules that prohibit financial institutions from sharing information.
“What obtains in Jamaica is the requirement that prior permission be sought with regard to the use of customer information,” Semple-Joseph said. “Stakeholders also see the restrictions within the legislation as holding back the process. We need a situation in which customer information is held and only released on their say-so,” she added.
Meanwhile, she said she believed the local Credit Bureau can make “a significant positive impact” on Guyana’s World Bank ratings as far as its Doing Business Report is concerned. “Access to credit is an important criteria for securing a good World Bank Doing Business rating. It is one of the World Bank’s benchmarks; So that the creation of an efficient Credit Bureau is one of those considerations that we need to take account of in order to both improve our Doing Business rating… [and] help attract investors to Guyana.”
Semple-Joseph told Stabroek Business, meanwhile, that a key objective of the Credit Bureau in 2015 is to launch and sustain a high-profile public information/public relations campaign “that seeks to make our targeted public aware of the range of services that a successful Credit Bureau can provide. Part of our focus would be on citing examples of other countries that have benefited in various ways from the presence of a Credit Bureau and demonstrating to our potential partners and consumers how their business ventures can benefit from an enhanced environment in which they can better access both credit and timely and valuable information.”
