THE country’s central credit registry is keeping the fee to access credit reports at an affordable price to boost lending amid the still ongoing pandemic.
Credit Information Corp. (CIC) said in a statement last Tuesday that the introductory price of P10 per credit report is made available until June this year. The CIC issued the statement after securing the approval for the move by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The CIC said it expects keeping the fee at a minimum would benefit registered financial institutions, including universal and commercial banks, rural banks, lending and financing firms, microfinance institutions, cooperatives banks and government lending entities.
The CIC said these financial entities can continue using the agency’s credit reports, which can help in deciding on credit-related activities at a cost-effective manner.
“We recognize the challenges encountered by both borrowers and lenders due to the pandemic so this is our way of helping the financial sector get back on its feet,” Aileen L. Amor-Bautista, the credit registry’s senior vice president for business development and communications, was quoted in the statement as saying.
At the same time, the credit registry said the move to keep the fees at that price aims to encourage other financial institutions to register as accessing entities.
“We want them to experience first-hand the benefits of accessing the Credit Information System [CIS] and the value of a shared-credit database,” she said. “With the P10 inquiry fee, we hope to reach non-bank and smaller [financial institutions].”
The CIC’s latest data shows the agency has 87 financial institutions paying for and investing in credit reports.
The credit information repository is attributing the increasing number of accessing entities to improvements in the CIS. These include the Primary ID Number Tagging system, which allows onboarding of borrowers who neither have a tax identification number nor primary IDs.
With this in place, the number of unique individuals captured by the CIC database rose to 23 million by end-2020 from 11 million in the first quarter last year.
“We believe this makes our product even more worthy of investment, especially at its current rate of P10 inclusive of [value added tax],” Amor-Bautista said. “The credit landscape will face even more challenges in the coming months so now is the time to register as an accessing entity.”