KARACHI, July 24: State Bank Governor Dr Shamshad Akhtar formally inaugurated the Electronic Credit Information Bureau (e-Cib) on Monday.

Speaking on the occasion, the governor said that the successful launch of e-Cib was an excellent manifestation of collaboration between the SBP and the Pakistan Banks’ Association.

“I hope this system will lay the foundation for our future endeavours and cooperation in a wide range of areas and domains to strengthen our financial system for the ultimate good of our economy and the country,” she added.Dr Akhtar said that the rapid expansion in lending in recent years to consumers, Smes and agricultural sector, both in volume and number of borrowers, had changed the credit risk profile of the financial institutions.

However, due to the previous reporting limit of Rs.500,000 and above, the small borrowers availing less than this amount remained untapped by Cib. To capture these borrowers, the limit has been removed, and the Cib’s reporting, operational and IT systems have also been redesigned and upgraded to mirror the international best practices in areas of credit information sharing.

The strengthened capacity and improved operational efficiency of e-Cib is expected to deliver benefits to both financial institutions and the borrowers, and would also help the supervisors to achieve and sustain their goal of financial stability, she added.

The governor said the newly introduced features of the e-Cib system promised considerable improvement in the core processes. Earlier president Pakistan Banks’ Association Naved A. Khan presented the welcome address.

With the launching of e-Cib, the financial institutions can now generate credit worthiness reports separately for consumer borrowers and corporate borrowers online from the system, which will facilitate them in prudent decision making regarding sanctioning of loans and their monitoring. For consumer reports, the default history of the borrower will be maintained for a period of 12 months and the consumers with a default history may find it very difficult to get finance from the financial institutions.

The SBP has embarked upon a comprehensive consumer awareness programme for Cib users and launched the e-Cib web page on its website with following URL:- http://www.sbp.org.pk/ecibhelpdesk

This web page has been exclusively designed to facilitate and guide the users/borrowers to know about Cib, its operations, frequently asked questions, list of member financial institutions, and circulars issued by the bureau. The borrowers/complainants can also lodge online complaints to redress their grievances.