‘Growing database to boost PHL score in credit metrics’

THE Credit Information Corp. (CIC) is expecting its latest initiatives, along with the growing database, to help in improving the country’s competitiveness ranking. The country’s credit registry said that it made the CIC credit reports accessible to the public and established the online dispute resolution process—all of which are seen to boost the Philippines’s score in getting credit metrics.

The CIC has also recently launched the Primary ID Number Tagging (Pint) system, which allowed credit-data submission of borrowers who do not have primary government identification cards. This resulted in expanding its database even more, according to the CIC.

“Because the system now accommodates submissions with no primary IDS and accepts UMID [unified multipurpose ID] and driver’s license, an additional 6 million borrower records were loaded in less than one month, which would have been previously rejected by our database,” CIC President and CEO Jaime Casto Jose P. Garchitorena said.

As of end-august, its database onboards 18.2 million individuals or nearly 26 percent of the country’s adult population.

In addition, the CIC said the credit database comprises 80.4 million contracts, 58.9 million of which are installment transactions.

“This means that the average Filipino doesn’t have a credit card but has installment contract—whether it’s monthly, weekly, or sometimes, daily—with microfinance lenders, cooperatives, or other covered financial institutions,” Garchitorena siad.

CIC currently has 519 submitting entities coming from different sectors of the financial system.

In the World Bank’s 2020 report on competitiveness ranking, the Philippines improved by 29 notches to 95th rank from 124th rank in the previous year out of 190 economies.

The country also saw improvement in getting credit indicator, rising by 52 notches to 132nd rank. Tyrone Jasper C. Piad