Not even Govt can access credit scores – Creditinfo assures

Although a person’s personal credit information is available to all subscribers of Creditinfo Guyana, the credit bureau has assured that provisions are in place to protect a borrower’s rights.
This is according to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Judy Semple-Joseph, who gave a lecture on the bureau’s operation on Wednesday, facilitated by the Guyana Press Association (GPA).
In emphasising the safety of the information recorded, she noted that provisions were in place to prevent even investigators and Police Officers from accessing a person’s credit details, as only a court can order a person’s credit information be released.
Semple-Joseph stated that, “The legislation requires of us under no circumstances can we share information with anybody, not even Government, but, of course, in the extreme case it has to be on judgment or some kind of sanction by the court and it has to go through a series of loops to get to that stage. So we can’t be written by the Police Commissioner to send this thing. No, it can’t happen.”

Creditinfo Guyana has been operating in the country for about five years now. It functions in accordance with the law to store and provide credit details of borrowers and users of utility services and others, such as the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) and Guyana Water Inc (GWI).
The credit information is usually stored and becomes particularly useful for persons seeking to borrow a loan or acquire an item through hire purchase.
Questions were, however, raised during the lecture at Moray House, Camp Street, Georgetown, on how protected a person’s credit information was, which was addressed by the business’s CEO.
She explained, “Under the Credit Reporting Amendment Act number two of 2016, which says that all lenders are mandated to share credit information with Creditinfo – with the credit bureau … all these subscribers that have credit data must share that data with us under a subscription agreement that they have, so they send us the database.”
Those lenders would include businesses such as Courts, all banking and micro-financing entities, utility companies, credit unions and even student loan agencies.
Although those lenders have access to a person’s personal credit history, they will be unable to view it without consent from the individual.
“What your right is (is) that you don’t have to give anyone permission to access it (credit information),” she informed.
Creditinfo Guyana Inc is the second regional operations of an Icelandic conglomerate (now headquartered in Barcelona, Spain).  Operating under the Credit Report Act of 2010 and Credit Reporting (Amendment) Act of 2016, the company was established in 2013 to provide credit reporting services through Guyana’s first credit bureau.