Six foreign, domestic credit bureaus seek CIC endorsement

MANILA, Philippines - The Credit Information Corp. (CIC) has accepted the applications of five international and a local credit bureaus as the first stage of accrediting the special accessing entities (SAEs).

The applicants sought to become the recognized credit bureaus as stipulated in Republic Act (RA) 9510 entitled, Credit Information Systems Act. 

The six who passed the document requirement stage were: Credit Bureau Singapore (CBS), Credit Information Bureau Inc. (CIBI), Compuscan, CRIF, Dun and Bradstreet South Asia Middle East, and TransUnion, all of whom submitted their documents to CIC last Nov. 16.

An SAE is a duly accredited private corporation engaged primarily in the business of providing credit reports, ratings and other similar credit information products and services.

Accreditation of credit bureaus by CIC is in accordance with the prescribed standards and rules by the government. Once accredited, these entities are granted access to CIC’s pool of consolidated basic credit data.

CIC president and chief executive officer Jaime P. Garchitorena said the SAEs would play a critical role in the improvement of public, especially the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME’s) access to credit with the development of products in the form of credit scores and other value added services.

Credit scores are expected to be the first products released by the SAEs and will be based on the credit reports accessed from the CIC as well as other data that the SAEs may gain access to from various sources.

Once CIC finalizes the accreditation of qualified credit bureaus and opens its database for qualified inquiries net year, MSMEs, the general public, corporations, and financial institutions can start benefiting from the credit scores and reports provided by these credit bureaus.