Local commercial banks and other lending agencies ought to be in a position to access credit reports on potential borrowers through the local Credit Bureau “within a month or two,” according to Bureau General Manager Judy Semple-Joseph.
“We are currently working to ensure that lending institutions have relevant and accurate information to work with so that we are currently working to ensure that our data base can provide that quality of information,” Semple-Joseph told Stabroek Business on Wednesday.
Asked whether she was satisfied with the pace at which the operationalizing of the Credit Bureau was moving since its launch here last September, Semple-Joseph said the elements of the process were “slow but that that was not unusual with the introduction of a Credit Bureau in a country for the first time.
A Credit Bureau is an independent organization that compiles and provides to banks and other lending institutions information regarding individuals’ credit applications and payment behaviour patterns.
The local Credit Bureau Head told Stabroek Business that the time taken to activate the country’s first Credit Bureau had everything to do with the “critical importance of ensuring that a reliable service is being provided.”
In March officials from the Iceland-based Creditinfo Aca-demy were invited to Guyana to execute a two-day Workshop aimed at sensitising the lending sector to the relevance of the Credit Bureau. Joseph told Stabroek Business that the forum was attended by 23 senior representatives of the banking, credit union, retail lending and telecom sectors.
She said that the forum sought to broaden the horizons of lending institutions on ways of improving risk management in the era of the Credit Bureau.
She said that among other things the workshops included “hands on computer experience in extracting credit reports from the Creditinfo Guyana system.”
Semple-Joseph said that with government having invested significantly in legislation to allow for the advent of the Credit Bureau, banks and other lending institutions needed to take corresponding action to integrate the credit bureau into their operations.
