The National Assembly has passes an amendment bill that oblige by the law, all Persons lending and financial institutions like banks and to provide to the Credit Reference Bureau with repayment history and current debt profiles of Persons and Companies.
On Tuesday evening the House passed Credit Reference Bureau Amendment bill with overwhelming support from main opposition parties of Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and People’s Party (PP).
Credit Reference Bureau is a company that allows users to exchange information on their clients repayment history and current debt profiles which compiles a data base that collects, stores, consolidates and process information related to credit history of a person.
However, the Bureau has been failing to get credit information of individuals and companies information from banks. This has been making it difficult for the Bureau to disseminate such credit information among users for their businesses.
Minister of Finance, Goodall Gondwe when presenting the bill in the House, said when the bill was passed in 2010 “We forgot to obligate banks” to send information to the bureau of the profile of individuals and companies on their credit history and profile.
According to the Credit Reference Bureau Act of 2010, (Part II- Operations of the bureau [13 (3 A)] the Bureau may collect credit information from financial institutions and any other institution as may be prescribed by the Minister upon recommendations by the Registrar and consult public sources of information for data in official records.
“In order to obligate them (financial and credit institutions) we have to say that it is mandatory by law for them to send that information” said Gondwe
The Act provides that the Bureau stores the credit data for a period of 7 years.
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