Togo’s parliament adopts law to amend BIC and improve business climate

Finance

Monday, 25 June 2018 19:23

Togo’s parliament adopts law to amend BIC and improve business climate

(Togo First) - Last Friday, Togo’s parliament adopted the law amending the n°2016-005 law of March 14, 2016, regarding regulation of credit information offices (BIC).

BIC’s role is to gather data from financial institutions, public entities and large utilities such as the power and water utilities as well as phone companies. The data looks at credit and payment histories of customers, to draw solvability reports which are used during lending processes.

Under the amendment, a fifth subparagraph was added to the previous text’s article 57. The measure stated under the subparagraph aims at enabling previously mentioned institutions to share with BIC, data on customer history from before the law was passed.

The new measure will help boost Togo’s presence on the data-sharing platform where it is currently poorly represented. “Passing the law will help enrich BIC’s database and subsequently lead to the improvement of our country’s ratings in terms of business climate,” Sani Yaya, Togo’s minister of economy and finance, told the parliament.

According to the official, BIC is a precious tool which will have “positive impact on business climate, as it will boost access to loans, via the implementation of an efficient instrument to analyze, assess and manage related risks”.

Yaya believes sharing data on loans will help prevent debtors from being over-indebted and enable relevant entities to take appropriate decisions when it comes to providing loans to customers. This would obviously allow lenders and large utilities to improve the quality of their portfolios and financial health.

Fiacre E. Kakpo

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