The Credit Information Bureau of Bangladesh Bank started its online credit information service from Tuesday.
BB governor Atiur Rahman inaugurated the online service at a function at Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in the capital.
The newly established automated CIB will provide credit related information for prospective and existing borrowers including credit history of last two years.
The BB governor was the chief guest at the function while BB deputy governor Nazrul Huda, Ian Crosby of IFC-SEDF advisory services and Catherine Martin of DFID spoke on the occasion.
Atiur said that some 5,000-6,000 queries about applicants for bank loans are made to the CIB every day and it takes around one week to respond to them. 'But from now on it will be done within seconds.'
He said that CIB provided more than 10 lakh credit information reports in 2010. At present there are 92.50 lakh borrowers in the banking system. Atiur said that the online service of the CIB would reduce the cost of doing business and will ease the business.
'It will help to improve good governance as online CIB will provide the necessary information quickly about the participants of the national and local elections if asked by the Election Commission,' he said.
Atiur said, 'Banks and financial institutions will access credit reports from CIB online at their own sites instead of the time consuming process of applying for and obtaining reports printed on paper.'
He termed the CIB online inauguration as a milestone for the development of the banking sector and the economy.
According to the existing provisions, if any client of a bank or financial institution wants to take a loan of $725 or Tk 50,000 or more, that bank or NBFI needs to collect the CIB report from the central bank to check whether the client is a loan defaulter or has any outstanding loans with any other bank or financial institution, said a BB official.
Source : New Age
