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Credit history of 85 lakh clients of micro-finance instituions (MFIs) is just a click away.
“We have almost completed the task of putting in place the database of poor women who had taken loans from MFIs. The data of about 15 lakh clients remain to be added, which would be done very soon,” Mr Reddy Subrahmanyam, Principal Secretary, Department of Rural Development, Government of Andhra Pradesh, told Business Line here on Wednesday.
The database, the creation of which was mandated by the AP Microfinance Act and came into force in October 2010, can be accessed by punching in the ration-card number of any client.
It would immediately display all the loans previously and currently obtained by the person, payment history and the outstanding amount,besides other details such as income oroccupation.
Notably, this database is now functioning as the country's first Government-run credit bureau for MFI clients. The earlier attempts to set up an MFI credit bureau by some industry bodies never really took off — largely because of the reluctance of the MFIs either to share data or to use it for sanctioning loans.
Officials said there was ‘high incidence' of multiple lending with some clients taking between five and nine loans from different MFIs!
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