THE FULL operation of the central credit information bureau has been
pushed anew to 2013.
The Credit Information Corp. (CIC), which Republic Act (RA) No. 9510 or
the Credit Information System Act of 2008 set up to oversee a credit
information system, has been beset by delays.
"Our original target to have the CIC operational by December 2012 has
been moved by a year or to December 2013," Baltazar N. Endriga, CIC
president, said in a phone interview last Friday.
"When we (the CIC's board of directors) started to draw the timeline of
our operations, we realized that our target of December 2012 was not
feasible because we have been delayed by various issues. We settled the
issue regarding our legal identity only last month," he said.
The CIC, as he explained, needed to register with the Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) and pay the P1 million registration fee in
order to seal its legal identity as a corporation. It could not do so
right away because as a government-owned and -controlled corporation, it
needed to get the go-ahead of the Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG),
which oversees state firms.
The government owns 60% of the CIC, and the private sector, 40%.
The Office of the President completed the composition of the GCG only in
November, five months after RA 10149 or the GOCC Governance Act of 2011
was passed.
"Cesar [L.] Villanueva, chairman of the GCG, sent us a letter dated Nov.
17 stating the CIC no longer needed to pay the SEC's registration fee as
the law creating the CIC already gave us the legal identity to start
operations," Mr. Endriga said.
"We can now proceed to operate as a regular corporation. We should just
submit a copy of the Credit Information System Act of 2008, which will
serve as our articles of incorporation, and the GCG's opinion to SEC,"
he added.
As a state firm, however, the CIC has to abide by RA No. 9184 or the
Government Procurement Reform Act, Mr. Endriga said.
"The service provider that will put up the database will be outsourced.
Following the law, there are publication requirements, bidding
requirements and request for proposals we should send to our prospective
service providers," he said.
"Doing the request for proposals will take four months and the
evaluation of bids will take another eight months. That is already a
year in our timetable."
Five service providers have already offered their services to the CIC,
but Mr. Endriga said the CIC still needs to send them the request for
proposals.
Hiring of employees, meanwhile, cannot proceed as yet because the CIC
still needs to publish its organizational structure in the newspapers as
a required by SEC.
"We also started to look for an office space and we are after an office
located in Fort Bonifacio, Global City in Taguig City," Mr. Endriga said.
As envisioned by RA 9510, a central credit information system will
"directly address the need for reliable credit information concerning
the credit standing and track record of borrowers."
Sought for comment, Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP)
President Ian Eric S. Pama, in a phone interview, yesterday said:
"having a central credit bureau in 2013 will benefit all financial
institutions, especially the small banks" as they will have access to
the credit profiles of various clients and thereby make "wise decisions"
on who to lend to.
RBAP at present is using the credit information gathered by the Bankers
Association of the Philippines (BAP), which is made up of the credit
profiles of big banks' clients.
All banks, quasi-banks, their subsidiaries and affiliates, life
insurance companies, credit card companies and other entities that
provide credit facilities are required to submit data to the CIC, making
its database the most comprehensive in the country.
The CIC's private sector investors are the BAP, RBAP, Chamber of Thrift
Banks, Credit Card Association of the Philippines, Philippine
Cooperative Center and the Philippine Credit Reporting Alliance, Inc.
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