Credit Reporting Agencies Bill 2009 passed by the Dewan Rakyat recently. The Bill requires credit-reporting agencies to obtain consent from an individual prior revealing his financial information to anyone else.
Consumers have the right to inspect the data and give their consent for the data to be displayed or otherwise.
The Bill also clarifies the roles and responsibilities of such agencies, which previously have been criticised for wrongly blacklisting the names of borrowers seeking loans from financial institutions.
Among their responsibilities are, registered with Finance Ministry, raise paid-up capital minimum of RM1mil and provide correct and up-to-date information on consumers’ financial information. Their database will be checked regularly by the registrar.
Five credit reporting agencies that need to be directly registered were Credit Tips Off Sdn Bhd (CTOS), SME Credit Bureau Sdn Bhd, RAM Credit Information Sdn Bhd and Bradstreet FIS.
However, an exemption was given to the Central Credit Reference Information System (CCRIS) because it has been placed under the Bank Negara Malaysia’s supervision.