NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked credit information companies (CICs) or credit bureaus to improve data quality and timely redressal of customer complaints. In a meeting with the heads of CICs, deputy RBI governor Swaminathan J on Thursday told the CICs that there is a rise in customer complaints related to credit information and some concerns have emerged during RBI’s supervisory assessment.
The deputy governor highlighted six key areas for the CICs to focus on. They include the need to improve the data quality, timely redressal of customer complaints and streamline the process for handling data correction requests. The deputy governor also told the credit bureaus to strengthen the internal ombudsman framework, cybersecurity and data privacy mechanism through a robust information security governance framework and address concerns arising out of the usage of data for consulting, analytics, etc.
The credit bureaus shared their feedback and highlighted the initiatives that are being taken in collaborating with the credit institutions (CIs) to enhance data quality. The meeting was chaired by Deputy Governor Swaminathan J and was attended by the executive directors and other senior officials of the Department of Supervision and Department of Regulation, RBI.
RBI in October last year had instructed credit bureaus to provide easy access to full credit reports including credit scores to individuals whose credit history is available once every year free of cost. The regulator had asked the CICs to make available the credit report by displaying the link prominently on the home page of their website so that individuals are able to access their credit report conveniently.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has instructed banks and financial institutions to inform customers whenever they submit information to credit bureaus about default or delays in payment of loans. The banking regulator has asked the credit bureaus to alert the customers when their credit reports are accessed by a third party.