Data bureau
THE IMF’s mission chief to Fiji, Lopez Murphy, recently revealed in a press conference that a new “credit bureau” is to be established in Fiji (FT 16/11). I understand that he was referring to the re-establishment of the kind of “data bureau” that was created by some financial institutions as a privately-owned company in 2001 and was eventually closed down by Government.
I fully understand the need for such a credit information collection agency, especially from the viewpoint of the commercial banks and the finance and credit providers — in terms of the ratings of the borrowers of funds and information on their ability to repay loaned funds and so on. That gives the lenders, some security in lending and its repayments.
However, from the borrower’s point of view, I believe a number of fundamental issues can arise with such an information gathering system. I believe a significant one is related to the whole invasion of privacy issue, where it relates to personal credit information that is with the lenders (re: Sec 24 of the Constitution). There is also the issue as to who has access to the credit information collected and whether the borrower themselves have the right to also have access to the credit information kept on them, to check on its accuracy and whether it is up to date with the repayments made (re: Sec 25 of the Constitution).
I am sure some of these issues arose with the earlier data bureau company and thus its demise and the eventual enactment thereafter, of the Fair Reporting of Credit Act 2016, to address these.
I also understand that this new bureau will be a licensed government agency and not a private one and hope that it will also comply with the provisions in the Act, which did not exist back then.
I also hope that these and other issues that may not be covered in the legislation are also addressed when the new bureau is finally established, so that the interests of the borrowers are really and truly taken into account this time around. EDWARD BLAKELOCK Admiral Circle,
Pacific Harbour