Issue 363 (Week ending 19/02/2019)

The Central Credit Register (CCR) is a centralised database designed to store specific loan information and is managed by the Central Bank of Ireland. The system is not being launched all at once but in a phased release that is gradually being rolled out.

Last week we offered a brief guide into what CCR is and what purposes it is designed to fulfil; for the Central Bank, its purpose is to give an overview of the various lending trends at any given time.

For lenders, the CCR is there to give them the most complete overview of a person or company's credit/loan history to help promote better credit decisions. But what information will be available?

Consumer Loans:

Since the end of June 2017, banks, credit unions and other lenders that provide consumer loans of €500 or more have submitted details of those loans to the CCR. And since the end of September 2018, lenders were required to request a credit report on any individual that applied for a loan of €2,000 or more.

Moneylender, Local Authority and Business Loans:

Since the 31st March 2018, licensed money lenders, local authorities (county councils etc) and entities that provide business loans have been required to provide information on loans to the CCR.

Business lenders have had to provide details on all loans since that date while moneylenders and local authorities had to submit details on loans of €500 or more. From March 2019, these lenders will have to request a credit report if they receive a loan application for €2k or more.

At the moment, lenders that offer hire purchase and asset finance loans are not required to submit these details to the CRO. However, this will change from the end of this June when loans of €500 or more will be recorded. A credit report will then be required on loan requests of €2,000 or more from October of this year.

As the CCR roll out continues, a number of organisations will see increases in their initial and ongoing compliance workload. If your company is one of those that will be affected by this, CRIF Vision-net.ie offers you the most comprehensive suite of solutions on the market.

Through our CRIF Gateway platform, offered as-a-service, clients will be able to query CCR and ICB simultaneously* data, as well as the latest CRIF Vision-net.ie credit reports, in seconds. Any query that our system runs on the CCR database leaves a traceable footprint, which ensures compliance with Section 14 of the Credit Reporting Act (Duty to access information on Register).

To find out more about our CCR reporting features, please contact our compliance specialists on Tel: +353 1 664 1111 or email helpdesk@vision-net.ietoday.

*Provided they are eligible to do so, i.e., respectively, they qualify as a CIP (Credit Information Provider) according to the Credit Reporting Act and they are a member of the Irish Credit Bureau. The CRIF Gateway accesses these databases on behalf of the lending organisation; charges for the data consumed with the data providers stay with the enquiring organisation.