36 Companies Registered With Credit Bureau

Some 36 entities have, to date, been registered with the island’s first licensed credit bureau, Creditinfo Jamaica Limited.

Chief Executive Officer, Megan Deane, says these include a wide range of public and private sector entities, which are now formal providers and subscribers of credit history background information on institutions and persons seeking credit access through facilities, such as loans.

Speaking at the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica (PSOJ) Chairman’s Club breakfast at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, New Kingston, on September 24, Ms. Deane informed that these entities include: the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ), Student’s Loan Bureau (SLB), Export/Import (EXIM) Bank as well as the island’s leading commercial banks, building societies, credit unions, and microfinance institutions.

She advised that Creditinfo is currently in the process of incorporating the information which these entities have provided into the entity’s central database.

Ms. Deane indicated that Creditinfo was granted a licence to operate by the Bank of Jamaica (BoJ) in March 2012. This, she explained, was in keeping with the Credit Reporting Act, which was passed by the House and Senate in August 2010 and came into effect two months thereafter. The accompanying Credit Reporting Regulations, which stipulate how such entities are to operate, became effective in January 2011.

Noting that Creditinfo was awaiting responses from the “big banks”, Ms. Deane said she is “pleased” that both the Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), and National Commercial Bank (NCB), among others, had done so accordingly.

“The Bank of Nova Scotia’s’ data came in last week and (and incorporation of that is) concluding this week; and National Commercial Bank’s (information) will be in before the end of the month,’ she disclosed.

Ms. Deane added that once credit information is received from all of the institutions, “then we will begin to really push the operations (of Creditinfo) in terms of providing the (credit) reports.”

She noted that Creditinfo Jamaica is part of the Iceland-based Creditinfo Group, which has a global network of credit bureaus, inclusive of “deep penetration” in Europe, adding that they are currently in the process of using the Jamaican operations as the “launching pad” to expand into Latin America and the Caribbean.

Ms. Deane advised that a second credit bureau licence was issued to the entity, Crif NM Credit Assure, but that company has not yet commenced operations.