Zimbabwe Credit Reference Bureau system to go live end of August

THE long awaited Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) system is due to kick off by end of August, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor John Mangudya has said.

A credit registry is an institution or agency that collects information from creditors and available public sources on a borrower's credit history.

The absence of a credit registry had resulted in multiple borrowers at a number of institutions thereby increasing chances of defaults.

"By end of this month we will be going live. We are happy with the system services that have been installed and this is going to minimise credit risk," he said.

A Czech Republic credit checker, Creditinfo was in April 2016 awarded the tender to set up the CRB system at a cost of $1,8 million as the central bank continues with efforts to improve credit risk management in the financial sector.

This comes as CBZ Holdings reported that the group has experienced a 3,8 percent increase in bad loans due to poor performance in agriculture.

Non performing loans (NPLs) climbed to $78,9 million during the half-year from $76,1 million at full-year 2015, according to the banking group's latest earnings release.

CBZ Holdings, Zimbabwe's biggest lender with over $1 billion in deposits, blamed the increase on below par performance in agriculture.

The number of customers in agriculture that failed to repay loans rose sharply, it said, up more than 93 percent.

The 2015 /16 agriculture season was negatively affected by bad weather characterised by the El Nino induced drought.