624 Digital Loan Firms Barred From Sharing Client Data with CRBs
The
Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) locked out 624 digital lenders and credit-only
providers from sharing information on loan payments and defaults last year in
the wake of customer complaints.
Fresh data shows that Kenya had 1,994
third-party data providers allowed to share borrowers’ loan defaults and
payments with Credit Reference Bureaus (CRBs), a 23.8 percent drop from 2,618
firms licensed the previous year.
The banking regulator attributed the fall to
the ban, which followed an outcry over widespread misuse of the credit information
sharing (CIS) mechanism.
CRBs are allowed to contact third parties
including digital lenders for information on loan payments and defaults for
onward sharing to banks, microfinance institutions, and SACCOs.
“The decline in numbers follows CBK withdrawal
on April 14, 2020, of 491 approvals granted to unregulated digital
(mobile-based) and credit-only lenders as third-party credit information
providers to CRBs,” the banking regulator says in its Supervision Annual Report
2020.
The CBK move came at a time of mounting loan
defaults and increased risk in the wake of the coronavirus-induced layoffs,
salary cuts and depressed sales firms.
CBK had also frozen CRB listing for loans that
were defaulted from April 1 and the relief lasted for six months up to
September 30.
The freeze was aimed at cushioned borrowers in
the wake of the Coronavirus economic fall-out that increased risk and saw the
share of unpaid loans rises to the highest level since August 2007.
This article was first published by Business Daily
Are you struggling to keep off loans, sign up to First and Fast Communication System, an Online Airtime Distribution System designed to solve the challenge of Okoa Airtime, Okoa Data, Mobile Loans, and Gambling among the youths.
Comments
Post a Comment