Consumers who are slow to pay their phone bills in northeast
China's Jilin Province may find their bank manager reticent about
approving a loan application.
Six telecom companies in Jilin have given local banks access to
consumer payment information, according to the Beijing
News on Monday.
Consumers who are two months late in paying their phone bills
without good reason will find the details uploaded into a bank
credit database, which can then influence a bank's decision about
whether or not to grant these consumers a loan, said the
report.
China's central bank has been striving to improve banks' loan
performance by tracking the credit histories of borrowers.
The credit database, initiated in January 2006, contains credit
information about 530 million people and tens of thousands of
enterprises.
The database keeps track of people's loan and credit card
payments, as well as tax, mortgage and utility payments. It also
records information about an individual's investments in the social
security fund and public housing fund.
Adding phone bill payment information to the database will
encourage ordinary people to become more aware of their
creditworthiness status, said Su Ning, deputy governor of China's
central bank.
In Jilin, commercial banks access the database 30,000 times a
month. About three percent of firms and up to 10 percent of
individuals applying for loans have been turned down after the
database revealed lacklustre credit ratings, the report said.
But a report by China Central Television (CCTV) argued that some
customers have refused to pay phone bills because the charges were
wrong.
Telecom companies have been accused of using questionable
methods to calculate call times and also of overcharging. Payment
default records should therefore be screened before being added to
the bank database to protect customers, CCTV said.
(Xinhua News Agency?April 23, 2007)