According to and article in Businessweek, K. C. Chakrabarty, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, offered in recent speech an additional way to expand credit: Better credit reporting. No shepherds with phones, no happy mothers of four with new sewing machines. Just credit reporting, plain old attention to detail, and administrative competence.
Chakrabarty indicated that it would help India’s middle class, people who already have assets or an electricity bill they pay regularly. He argues that, eventually, this store of information could allow banks to make inferences about first-time credit seekers. If you know something about the people who have credit, you can make some guesses about the people who don’t. But in a country with a growing middle class and a massive number of what development economists call “the unbanked,” something this unsexy – consistent, reliable information—could make a huge difference.
This is music to our ears however is the financial services sector listening? The article claims that of issue is the fact that the financial sector in India often submits inaccurate or incomplete information about loan performance to credit bureaus. Smaller banks don’t all report credit information on a monthly or even regular basis.
Source: Businessweek.com
