Speaking at yesterday’s launch of the 2009 Compensation and Benefits Report of Micro, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, Bruce Golding, Prime Minister of Jamaica, announced that a credit-reporting bill, that will allow financial institutions to recognize an individual’s credit history as collateral, is now before a select committee of Parliament.
He specifically said … “Yesterday (Monday, September 7) I had a meeting with Andrew Holness, who is leader of the House of Represen-tatives, and Minister (Audley) Shaw, who has responsibility for the bill, to try to see if we can get it through that committee as soon as possible so that we can bring it into law“.
He said also that he has asked the finance minister, Audley Shaw, to ensure that the law be retroactive so that a person’s credit history can be tracked “five, 10 years in the past“, and added that “a credit record is important because if I’m a lender and you are coming to borrow money and you bring a house title with you, but somebody else comes and he doesn’t have a house title but he has a (good) credit record …. I’m going to be more inclined to lend that person than the person who has the title.”
He said that the bill was part of a wider effort by Government, to address some of the systemic institutional challenges currently facing the establishment and growth of small businesses here in Jamaica.
Notably however, officials of the Jamaica Bankers’ Association have reportedly contended already, that some current provisions of the draft legislation were not workable. One of the biggest concerns for the bankers was the question of at what stage customers’ consent would be required. In its current form, the legislation requires the credit-information providers to first obtain customer consent. Similarly, for a credit bureau to release credit information, it would first have to seek the customer’s consent. The bankers fear that this will increase the time taken to access credit.
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