Thrift bankers urged to tap data sharing system

MANILA, Philippines - The Chamber of Thrift Banks (CTB) is urging its members to tap into the positive data sharing system (PoDS) of the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) to improve their capability to assess credit information of their borrowers.

CTB president Jose Teodoro Limcaoco said various initiatives have been carried out to push for the utilization of the PoDS.

“CTB members may now gain access to this PoDS system. The PoDS’ main objective is to provide collaborative loan information to individuals with personal or salary loans throughout the financial institutions,” Limcaoco, concurrently BPI Family Savings Bank president, said.

“With that information to be provided by the system, thrift banks will be able to avoid borrowers’ delinquency or debt over burden and make them more equipped in providing credit decisions. Initially, PoDs will start out with personal and salary loans and credit cards data and eventually they hope to go to auto loans and housing loans,” he added.

CTB is currently a stockholder of the Credit Information Corp. (CiC), the national credit information bureau formed by the government through the Credit Information System Act (CISA) in 2008.

Recently, CiC tapped the International Finance Corp. of the World Bank Group to help in the development of an appropriate business model for establishing a credit information system, including the selection of the best technical partner to design and set up the information system.

No money will be involved between the two entities, but IFC will pay for credit information bureau experts and information technology (IT) consultants.

CiC officials and stakeholders admitted that collection and collation of positive and negative credit data would not be easy, given that the bureau must be fully operational by 2015.

The bureau must create a database that will provide independent, up-to-date, reliable and accurate credit information to private sector credit bureaus, which will then sell the information to banks and other lenders. Such information will help lower payment defaults, reduce the risk of lending, and increase credit access for all borrowers.

CiC is controlled by the National Government, with a 60-percent stake, and chaired by the Securities and Exchange Commission.