Page 25 - Banking Finance September 2022

COVER STORY

PUBLIC CREDIT

REGISTRY (PCR):

GAME CHANGER

IN RESHAPING

OUR CREDIT

ECOSYSTEM

Introduction: stakeholders such as banks and private financial institutions
on a need-to-know basis. It was suggested that the PCR
The Public Credit Registry (PCR) is the culmination of
would improve India's ease of doing business parameters at
recommendations given by the committee headed by Y.M.
the World Bank.
Deosthalee. The idea behind creating the public registry is
to collate the financial information of individual and
A Public Credit Registry (PCR) is an information repository
corporate borrowers under one platform, inclusive of
where all information about existing as well as new
financial delinquencies, pending legal suits, and willful
borrowers is stored. This includes both corporate as well as
defaulters. The objective was to strengthen the credit
retail borrowers. The idea is to capture all relevant
culture of the Indian economy.
information in a single large database on both the
outstanding loans and repayment history of an entity/
The move is a departure from the existing mechanism
corporate/individual.
where there are multiple credit information repositories
with varied data objectives and coverage. The lack of credit
Public Credit Registry (PCR), created by the Reserve Bank
information gap will be filled by the unified PCR. The data
of India, is a public digital registry to capture and store
contained in the system will be made available to
financial information of borrowers in India, both existing and
new borrowers. The credit registry will collate the
borrowing history of both individuals and corporate
borrowers. Borrowers will have access to their credit
information and seek corrections.

The PCR would be a comprehensive database of information

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