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BB to modernise credit info bureau

Star Business Report
The central bank is going to appoint a foreign vendor to modernise its credit information bureau (CIB), which bankers said would help clear off negative perceptions about the bureau's poor services.
Senior bankers said they want implementation of the project as soon as possible so that checking borrowers' credit history can be faster and efficient for the betterment of the banks and clients as well.
The British government's Department for International Development (DFID) has agreed to finance 3.12 million pounds to implement the project.
"We are in the final stage to appoint CRIF, an Italybased firm, for modernising the credit information department,” a senior Bangladesh Bank (BB) official told The Daily Star.
As part of the move, a BB team was expected to visit Czechoslovakia and Italy to see how the system was adopted there, the official said.
According to experts, credit information in Bangladesh is extremely inadequate and unreliable that push banks into getting collateral as security against the loans.
Although the BB set up the CIB in 1992 to collect all credit-related information about each borrower, it was not efficient enough, the experts said. In the process, CIB collects data from banks on the monthly basis and
from financial institutions on the half-yearly basis.
The bureau also contains information about current loans above Tk 50,000 and does not have a unique identifier for borrowers.
"A weak credit information department reduces effectiveness of the system particularly hurting smaller firms who cannot build up reputation-based credit," observed a World Bank report on Investment Climate Assessment released last month.
"Banks cannot differentiate between good and bad clients because of weak credit information,” Syed Akhter Mahmud, senior programme manager of International Finance Corporation.
Private bank officials said they have to spend up to 20 days to get a CIB report against a loan application, while it is four workdays for an urgent one.
"Loan approval by the board gets delayed because of the delay in getting the CIB report,” said Mahmood Sattar, managing director and chief executive officer of City Bank-
Respective banks have to take board's approval for lending Tk 10 lakh and above.
There are other flaws in the bureau, such as limitation in crosschecking of information about customers, Sattar said.
"A modern CIB is extremely important to get quick and accurate information on borrowers’ record," said former BB deputy governor Muhammad A Rumee Ali.