Responsible access to credit information to improve the lives of Guyanese – Creditinfo

Georgetown: Creditinfo, a leading service provider for credit information and risk management solutions in Guyana and worldwide held a private meeting with its local stakeholders at the Marriott recently.Chairman of Creditinfo Guyana, Hakon Stefansson, in his address to the stakeholders in Guyana, highlighted statistics on the performance of the credit market over the past year. Of significance, according to the Mr. Stefansson, there has been a 15% decline in new loans granted in the first 5 months of 2017 compared with the same period in 2016. He also revealed that the average loan amount borrowed by women from January 2016 to date is two times lower than the amount borrowed by men. The Chairman used the opportunity are at the meeting to encourage local stakeholders to investigate why this is so and to identify any opportunities that this scenario may present. Meanwhile, also present and at the special meeting was the Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin, who underscored the need for a national movement towards the usage of data for decision making such as being facilitated by Creditinfo. He emphasized that the availability of credit information reduces the risk associated with lending and that the reduced risk of lending should in turn lead to lowered interest rates for borrowers. Chief Executive Officer of Creditinfo, Ms Judy Semple-Joseph provided a synopsis of the company’s experience over the past four years and noted that responsible access to credit and service quality is meant to support the development of a more robust financial sector, to create countless opportunities for the expansion of business and in general, better serve the possibility of better lives for all Guyanese. Present at the meeting were representatives from local commercial banks and other non-bank financial institutions, utility companies, other Creditinfo subscribers from the commercial sector and private sector organizations. The primary objective of the meeting was to provide an update to stakeholders on the credit bureau’s experience to date and to facilitate a discussion on matters of mutual interest.