KARACHI, Feb 26: Banks and financial institutions can now seek credit worthiness reports from Credit Information Bureau of State Bank and submit their monthly credit data electronically. The SBP has asked all banks and other financial institutions to avail of this facility by April 30, 2003 after which CIB would stop giving manual reports on credit worthiness.
This has become possible as the State Bank has made CIB online in collaboration with Pakistan Banks Association. As a result of this the time lag in submission of data to CIB and retrieval of credit reports would reduce thereby making the credit appraisal processes of banks and non-bank financial companies efficient.
A circular issued by SBP on Wednesday said banks/development financial institutions and non-bank financial companies may avail this facility by signing an agreement with the central bank.
“The applicant banks/ DFIs/ NBFC will be connected online after signing of the agreement and payment of joining fee of Rs130,000,” says the circular. Banks will pay the joining fee to PBA while DFIs and NBFCs shall pay the fee to the SBP.
After completion of this formality, the SBP shall provide necessary guidelines, software, users ID etc. to the banks/DFIs/ NBFIs. “All banks/DFIs/NBFCs are advised to join CIB online at the earliest but not later than 30th April, 2003. The State Bank shall not entertain any request of issuance of credit reports manually after 30th April, 2003.”
The circular says that the existing forms for data collection and credit worthiness reports of CIB have been critically examined in consultation with PBA to bring them at par with best international practices.
“As a result the existing forms...have been revised thereby deleting certain redundant fields/items and increasing the width of few fields and adding some new fields/items.”
The SBP has advised banks to retrieve the new forms from its website. “Banks/DFIs/NBFCs are advised to submit CIB data of borrowers of Rs0.5 million and above on the revised formats online through their authorized persons from the month ending on 30th April, 2003 from their pre-notified telephone numbers, within 15 days from the close of each calender month.”
“However, during the three months’ parallel run period (upto June 2003), Banks/DFIs/NBFCs shall continue to submit the above data on floppy diskettes also.”