Credit Scoring debate: Bright Simons questions sudden U-turn by credit bureaus

Vice President of IMANI Africa, Bright Simons has cast doubt over the recent about-turn on the part of the credit bureaus over the existence of a credit scoring system in Ghana.

Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia recently announced that beginning next year, Ghana will introduce a personalised credit-scoring system, which will be anchored by the Ghana Card, the national biometric identity card.

However, two senior officials of policy think tank IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe and Bright Simons, claimed personalised credit scoring system already exists in Ghana. The two have since maintained their position despite a Bank of Ghana 2022 Credit Reporting Activity report, that said credit scoring was yet to be introduced in Ghana.

In a recent write-up sighted by GhanaWeb Business, Bright Simons worried about the fact that the credit bureaus such as XDS Data until recently indicated they do credit scoring in Ghana along with evidence from their sites.

He further went to provide evidence from XDS Data’s website which indeed affirmed the existence of the credit scoring system.

However on December 5, 2023 XDS Data in statement noted that in spite of its "capabilities", it has not been able to produce scores due to the absence of a unique identifier like the Ghana Card.

Reacting to the claims made by the agency, Bright Simons pointed that the same credit bureaus in Ghana do credit scoring in Nigeria, Tanzania and elsewhere even though those countries at the time they started doing the scoring didn't have a national ID that had nearly everyone on it as XDS is claiming is necessary.

See Bright Simon’s full response below:

Ghana Card & Credit Scoring: A mess turns surreal

MA

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