CIBIL Credit Information Bureau India Limited

Sarbajit Roy's Hacking Complaint has substantially regulated the way CIBIL will do business in future. See last para of this story

CIBIL database grows to top 20 m records
Friday, 20 May , 2005, 08:48 (source rediff)

Chennai: Retail loans are booming at Indian banks. Given the 30 to 40 per cent loan growth that banks are registering, it would be difficult to verify each individual applicant's antecedents. This is where Credit Information Bureau helps banks, by providing a database of all borrowers in the system. Banks just need to query the CIBIL database, thus cutting the time taken for verification and process loan applications faster. As a customer, you'll benefit by getting your loans sanctioned faster - provided your track record is clean.

S. Santhanakrishnan, Chairman of Credit Information Bureau of India Ltd, answers a couple of questions about its operations.

How big is your database currently?

Our database has grown from 4 million records contributed by 13 members to over 20 million records from around 30 members.

How many banks have shared their full data with CIBIL?

At present, around 30 members have provided their complete consumer/borrower data to CIBIL. Several others are in various stages of data submission, wherein the data submitted by them goes through the stages of data validations and quality checks. The RBI is in continuous dialogue with the banks wherein they monitor the progress of data submission to CIBIL and encourage them to submit data to CIBIL.

Have banks started sharing of information on corporate borrowers?

Yes, banks have started submitting data on their commercial accounts as well. We expect that the database should be well populated in the next couple of months and we would be in a position to launch the commercial bureau operations. In the meanwhile CIBIL is already maintaining data pertaining to suit-filed cases.

How many queries have been posed to the CIBIL database by various users?

Most of the banks that have submitted their complete data to us have been instructed to pull a credit report for each loan that is being sanctioned. While most of them are using the `Web' to access reports, many of the members are moving towards building the CPU-to-CPU connectivity, which would permit them to connect to our servers, and access bulk reports.