UAE credit bureau’s subscriber base doubled in 2015

28/06/2016 02:19 AST

The number of institutions using the services of Al Etihad Credit Bureau (AECB) doubled during 2015, with a significant increase in credit data enquiries also being noted.

“The number of subscribers with Al Etihad Credit Bureau doubled in 2015 to reach a total of 59, whilst the average monthly enquiries tripled in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to the first quarter of of the same year,” said Marwan Ahmad Lutfi, CEO of Al Etihad Credit Bureau at its first annual subscriber forum held recently. Officials from the bureau as well as a number of representatives from the banking and financial services sector attended the forum.

According to Manoj Chawla, chief risk officer at Emirates NBD, “Underwriting has become more informed, thereby substantially adding to efficiency and also managing risk and serving the customer. Al Etihad Credit Bureau has helped banks in better managing the risk-reward equation and can be seen as driving a responsible behaviour in the market that is beneficial overall for all participants. The bureau’s reports have become one of the key drivers in the retail underwriting process.”

In more than 18 months of operations, with more than 6.6 million active facilities in the AECB database, only 1,880 disputes were raised, accounting for less than 0.0005 per cent of all facilities in the database.

According to the bureau, 90 per cent of disputes were resolved in 10 working days. “In our drive towards excellence, we have also developed an online data correction tool for our data providers that will enable them to make real-time data corrections. This will considerably further reduce dispute turnaround times and significantly increase the accuracy of data submissions,” said Lutfi.

For the next two years the credit bureau has ambitious targets. “We have a very ambitious product development roadmap set out for 2016 and 2017. Starting with the consumer credit score that will fulfill the World Bank Competitiveness requirements for the UAE all the way to benchmarking reports, which will provide powerful analytics, such as market share, growth versus risk and bad debt analysis by demographics, [all which] will undoubtedly improve risk analysis and lending practices in the UAE,” said Lutfi.

Gulfnews