CRIB celebrates 25 years of creating excellence

By Inshira Shainaz     

Sri Lanka’s Credit Information Bureau (CRIB) recently celebrated 25 years of operations during a ceremony graced by Central Bank of Sri Lanka Governor Arujna Mahendran at the Cinnamon Grand.

“Twenty-five years is a major milestone for our institution and this is an occasion to celebrate the distance well travelled. There has been an increased dependency on information provided by the CRIB. The depth and the richness of credit information has increased and now many vendors depend on the credit information provided by the CRIB,” CRIB Chairman Ananda Silva stated.

Charting the organisation’s recent performance, Silva noted that CRIB had issued 167,000 credit reports in 2010, a figure which rose dramatically to 4.8 million in 2014 and already crossed 700,000 credit reports in the first quarter of 2015.

“CRIB has always attempted to maintain timeliness and accuracy when providing credit information while at the same time ensure confidentiality of data submitted by the banks and non-bank financial institutions. 

“Over the past two and half decades CRIB has played vital role in facilitating financial institutions to effectively manage portfolios and make prudent lending decisions. In fact it has contributed to reshape the credit culture in the country,” he noted.

Commenting on envisioned direction of the bureau moving forward, Central Bank Governor Mahendran stated that steps should be taken to include valuable capital remitted back to the country by Sri Lanka’s expatriate workers into the overall credit evaluation system, particularly given the sizeable population of Sri Lankans working overseas.

“Last year the country received official remittances accounting to $ 7 billion; we consider that our GDP is above $ 70 billion dollars or more that it is 10% which is a significant number. This is because we have very large working population overseas,” Mahendran explained. 

Anticipating a sharp increase in consumer spending as Sri Lanka crosses the $ 4,000 per capita income sometime within the next year, Mahendran reiterated the importance of effectively chanelling remittances into savings.

“For that we have to exploit this growth in a constructive manner this is why I put  an idea, how can you harness this big saving potential coming from our brothers and sisters who are working overseas,” he noted.

CRIB’s 25th anniversary also coincided with its Rating Awards for 2014 and felicitation of senior members of the organisation.  Established in 1990 CRIB was the first Credit Bureau to be established in the South Asian region under the Credit Information Bureau Act No. 18 of 1990 under the supervision of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and the Ministry of Finance. 

CRIB currently has 94 shareholders, comprised of all licensed commercial banks, specalised banks, finance companies, leasing companies and other lending institutions authorized by the Act and the Central Bank.

Pic by Lasantha Kumara