MANILA, 24 May and 07 June 2018 – As part of Commission on Audit’s (COA) Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE), CIC gave updates on the Republic Act No. 9510 or Credit Information Systems Act (CISA) to its participants from different regional offices at COA’s Professional Development Office. 

CIC as the Public Registry in the Philippines

CIC’s Senior Vice President for Business Development and Communications, Atty. Aileen L. Amor-Bautista, relayed that credit registry is not a novel idea for several European countries have long ago utilized credit registry in order to monitor the payment behavior of borrowers. 

In the Philippines, CIBI was the first Credit Reporting Agency created, but financial institutions are not required to submit their credit data, hence submission of credit data of their borrowers are voluntary which makes the aggregated credit data less comprehensive. 

The birth of Credit Information Corporation (CIC) through Republic Act No. 9510 led to mandatory submission of credit data from all financial institutions. The CIC is also under the supervision of Security Exchange Commission (SEC) and Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG). 

During the open forum, the SVP for Business Development and Communications clarified that the purpose of credit report is to determine the creditworthiness of a borrower, thus shall not be used for marketing or any other purposes. 

She highlighted how some OFWs experience some difficulties in acquiring credit facility in foreign countries for they are first required to submit their credit report from their country of origin – which is just one of the things that the CIC desires to resolve. 

When asked on how much the credit report would cost, Atty. Amor-Bautista said that as of the moment CIC is not yet charging. Access to free credit report shall be available to the general public soon to determine the quality of the credit report being generated.