MAKATI CITY, 04 January 2021 – More borrowers from lending and financing companies are being loaded into the Credit Information Corporation’s (CIC) database as the sector topped the most recent list of CIC’s submitting entities (SEs) in production or those financial institutions that are already submitting live or actual credit data of their borrowers.
In its Letter-Circular No. 2020-08 dated 17 December 2020, the state-run repository of credit information published the list of 23 additional financial institutions consists of 11 lending and financing companies, seven cooperatives, and five rural banks, which brought the total of its submitting entities to 557.
The list includes Grab Financial Services Philippines and Hewlett Packard Financial Services (Philippines) Corporation.
“We are grateful to these financial institutions because despite and amid the pandemic, they still strived to comply with the law. The addition of this new set of submitting entities in production is expected to further expand the already growing database of the CIC,” Atty. Aileen L. Amor-Bautista, Senior Vice President for Business Development and Communications, shared.
Comprehensive, inclusive database
The CIC believes that the deployment of its Primary ID (PID) Number Tagging System in July contributed to the drastic increase in the number of its submitting entities in production and unique individual records, especially from microfinance institutions (MFIs), cooperatives, and rural banks whose borrowers may not have IDs of TIN, SSS, or GSIS.
Because the system now accommodates submissions of records with no primary IDs and accepts UMID and driver’s license, the CIC database now covers 23.3 million individual Filipino borrowers and almost 90,000 companies, with 85 million credit records.
“This is almost 36% of the adult population of the Philippines which according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is approximately 63 million,” Atty. Amor-Bautista said.
The SVP further relayed that the CIC started the year with just nine million borrowers but due to its persistence in enjoining compliance and underscoring the significance of a centralized credit registry, the number almost tripled by year-end.
“The CIC is moving closer and closer to the realization of the inclusivity as envisioned by the Credit Information System Act (CISA). As the number of data subjects increase, the more inclusive the database becomes. With the latest batch of submitting entities led by lending and financing companies, we will cover not just the borrowers from banks and credit card companies, making it more inclusive to the average Filipino.”
Among the CIC’s initiatives during the pandemic is the launch of its online training program to continuously provide technical assistance on the requirements for submission and compliance and to capacitate covered entities on their roles in the credit information ecosystem.
Malicious use of the CIC’s name by lending companies
The CIC also underscored anew its call for the public to be cautious against the malicious and fraudulent use of CIC’s name, especially by online lending companies that includes threatening the borrowers that they will be blacklisted in the CIC database if they don’t settle their payments.
“The CIC as a public credit registry receives credit data submitted by financial institutions, and its mandate does not include blacklisting of borrowers,” the SVP mentioned.
Borrowers are likewise encouraged to check whether the financial institution using the CIC’s name to threaten them is actually a submitting entity.
“We encourage everyone to regularly visit our website at www.creditinfo.gov.ph to check the list of financial institutions submitting credit data to CIC,” the CIC SVP ended.
This press release has been featured in Manila Standard and Business Information Industry Association (BIIA).