Almost eighteen months after its September 13, 2013 launch here, Credit Info Guyana Inc has recorded the first use of credit data generated by the institution as part of the process employed by a local financial institution to support its risk management mechanism and decision-making process for credit applications.
On Tuesday, Credit Info Guyana Inc disclosed to Stabroek Business that the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED) had pulled the first ever Clearance Report from its online system.
Credit Info Chief Executive Officer Judy Semple-Joseph said the report, in the name of IPED client Nandini Etwaroo will now form the basis of the client’s pending approval of a loan from that facility.
The agency’s Marketing Manager David Falconer described January 21, the day on which the Credit Report was pulled from Credit Info’s data base as “a historic moment” for the institution. What this means is that Credit Info has now begun to deliver what it has promised; risk management that is now available to financial institutions in Guyana. “What we have been saying all along has now come to pass,” Falconer said.
Semple-Joseph said while there was no gainsaying the fact that the institution still had “a long road to travel” in the quest to successfully market its services in Guyana, “we are tremendously encouraged by the fact that one of our customers, IPED has activated one of the key services that we provide. We would want to think that the successful use of the Clearance Report as an effective risk-management tool by a local lending institution will actually encourage other financial institutions including the commercial banks to buy-in to what Credit Info has to offer.”
IPED, according to Falconer, has been “a staunch supporter of the concept of a local credit information service from its inception. Actually, IPED was among the first local financial institutions to upload data to the Credit Bureau and has been doing so ever since with the permission of their clients.”
At a recent event held to mark the Credit Info milestone, IPED’s Chief Executive Officer Ramesh Persaud described the development as “a positive move” adding that being able to access credit reports “will greatly improve the prospective customer’s chance of receiving credit as good credit ratings will now become an asset to borrowers.”
While the local financial sector has long advocated more effective credit risk mechanisms to help protect lenders and Credit Info has secured the backing of the Central Bank, local financial institutions have been in no undue haste to embrace the services. Semple-Joseph said she was satisfied that the banking sector was “fully aware of the benefits that Credit Info can bring to the financial sector” and that progress was being made in the institution’s engagements with the banking sector. “We believe that credit reporting and risk management tools for use in the evaluation of prospective borrowers have been on the wish list of lenders and providers of credit in the financial sector in Guyana for some time now and we understand that there are processes involved in reaching that point where they subscribe to what Credit Info has to offer,” she said.
