Cibil will launch private score for personal loans

Khyati Dharamsi and Joel Rebello.
Friday, January 9, 2009 2:19 IST

After launching a credit score for individuals a bank has lent to, Credit Information Bureau of India (Cibil), the only credit bureau in India, is on its way to launching a credit score for personal loans and other products to help banks reduce their bad loans. Arun Thukral, managing director of Cibil, talks to DNA. Excerpts from an interview:

Cibil has been talking about making credit report available to individuals?
You know that in India, there is no unique identification number. We need a process in place to verify that the person asking for the report is indeed the person whose report it is. Due to the lack of a unique identification number, we use date of birth, mailing address, PAN number, passport number and voter's ID for verification. We might also have to ask for documents initially and cross-check those. But that can't be done in Cibil's office. We need a different process centre and that should be ready in a year. By 2010, individuals will be able to access their own credit reports.

How has the situation changed given that banks are going slow on lending?
Banks are still using our reports to acquire customers. These reports are also used to review the portfolios of customers they already have. That's where the major shift is. Banks have become more selective about the customer profiles they loan money to. The account review or portfolio review tells you how your portfolio is doing. Everybody today is focussing on the regular review of the portfolio to know its health.

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