Yes, this is the SMS that has been circulating in this region for quite some time now. If you want to avail any kind of loan, make sure that your phone bills, health insurance bill and any legal document, that is computerised, be paid. “We are yet to use the data from telecom companies as the credit information companies haven’t started disseminating the same. Once they start incorporating the information in their report, we will be in a position to peruse it before sanctioning loans. It is just a matter of time,” says Kamlesh Rao, executive vice-president , personal finance. So if you thought that just by maintaining clean credit records only with the financial institutions give you access to credit, then maybe, you are wrong.
Well, its not a new step taken by the government of India, but has been regulated in 2005 by the Credit Information Companies(Regulatory)Act in 2005, which gives the insurance or any financial institutions, access tot eh customers of any telecom authorities and vice verse, so that users credit history can be monitored from time to time.
Points of benefits
It is obvious, it is going to help the banks and telecom operators. But it could also help you to become a prudent citizen and prompt you to keep a good credit record. Maintaining good credit record is possible when the customer, applying for a loan, has clean records of telephone bill payments, insurance bills payments etc. If not, the answer to your loan application will not be a positive one.
However, let me site you an example, as to how genuinely, you as a loaner can be benefited. Suppose, you borrowed a home loan, paying an interest of 7%. You have managed to pay your installments before time and have a clean credit record. Your neighbour too is a holder of such a scheme and is not very regular in paying off her interest or principal amounts. Now, if in such a situation, the bank looks to extend the loan amounts, then, you and your neighbour, together will be benefited. But you can have an upper hand, when it comes to negotiating the interest rate or the loan tenure etc in the light of a positive clean credit record from your side.
“In some countries, even if rent is not paid on time, the bank takes this aspect into account while giving a loan,” says Vayravan Subramamiam, president of Bangalore-based credit counselling service provider , Debt Doctor Management Services. So apart from your phone bill, policy payments, in the coming future, various other parametres will be considered to evaluate your credit standard and the acceptance of your loan application.
Tightening the network
The telcom and Insurance companies are allowed to offer the records and information about their customers to not only banks but also to credit information firms. This will further entails them to keep a record on your utility bills apart from phone and policy bills, thereby maintaining a strict vigilance on your database. So, do keep in mind, that not only maintaining a good credit score but also maintaining clean payment records in all aspects of your daily/monthly expenses, can not only guarantee you with the fast access and easy approval of your loan application but can put you in a better situation to negotiate about interest rates, tenures etc.