Credit Bureau hurt by legislative void

The banks will have to find a solution in the next few months to convince their own debtors to agree to have personal credit contract information conveyed to and checked by the Credit Bureau. At least this was one of the conclusions drawn by part of bankers attending the Piata Financiara Conferences on the operation of the Credit Bureau. It is actually about 3.3 million credit contracts (consumer segment) for which the express agreement clause has to be observed, if the respective info is to reach the Credit Bureau. The Credit Bureau will be organised like a trading company numbering 24 banks as shareholders. The system will have a database of all the loans taken out by individuals, which will allow banks to check the credit record of their customers and the number of loans. Attorney Arin Stanescu explained that while there were no problems with providing negative data showing a borrower as bad payer, the problems were likely to arise when offering positive data, about the existence of a loan contract only, without the client consenting to it first. The latter may very well be regarded as a breach of banking secrecy in his opinion. He says that although there is a law (677/2001) regulating transmission, processing and storage of personal data, it does not fully cover all the situations arising from the operation of the Bureau. ZF