DTI-TRANSUNION AGREEMENT TO IMPROVE COMPETITIVENESS RANKING, PROMOTE MSME ACCESS TO FINANCE

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and TransUnion Philippines signed a data sharing agreement on 29 January 2020 in which DTI will provide Publicly Available Data of business enterprises to TransUnion, the country’s largest credit bureau.

The data sharing agreement will allow TransUnion to develop a “firm bureau database” to expand distribution of its credit information to not only individuals but to firms as well. This criterion is measured by the World Bank in their Doing Business (DB) Report under its “depth of credit information index.”

“Today’s signing of the data-sharing agreement between DTI and TransUnion is part of the government’s continuing effort to improve our competitiveness ranking. This partnership signals greater collaboration between the government and the private sector in using data analytics to help us in policy making and program development,” DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez said.

Sec Lopez further said: “This initiative is hitting two birds with one stone. By working closely through information-sharing with TransUnion, we are confident that we will secure additional points under the Getting Credit Indicator. More importantly, the publicly available data we provide will be processed together with their rich database to be used in determining borrowers’ credit worthiness. In the end, this will contribute to increasing the bank’s efficiency in processing loan applications.”

Following the data protest filed by the Philippine government in 2018, the WB accepted the data correction request of the Philippine government when it confirmed that TransUnion is the largest credit bureau in the country with 8.47 million adult population in its database. This is 13.5% of the total adult population in the Philippines, exceeding the 5% WB threshold. The data correction request resulted in a 35-point increase in the Philippines’ score for Getting Credit and a significant +52 notches increase in the indicator ranking.

“At TransUnion, we use information to empower our lending partners in giving financial access to more consumers. In order to do this, we at TransUnion continually strive to bring in more extensive credit information from various sources into our database. The more diverse and extensive data that we have, the more efficient our business partners will be in making decisions to extend credit to both consumers and businesses,” said Ms. Pia Arellano, President and CEO of TransUnion Philippines.

The DB Report is an annual survey report released by the World Bank. In the DB 2020 report, the Philippines reached the Top 100 competitive countries when it recorded a +26-notch increase, which remains the highest recorded annual improvement of the country since 2010. From 124th place, the Philippines rose to 95th.

With the enactment of RA 11032, or the “Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act,” DTI has turned over to the Anti Red Tape Authority (ARTA) the reform initiatives for the succeeding cycles

For more details and event updates, please check DTI Philippines’ official social media websites (@DTIPhilippines on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter).