DTI inks data sharing deal with TransUnion

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has signed a data sharing agreement with TransUnion Philippines the country’s largest credit bureau, for the development of a corporate database aimed at helping the Philippines improve its competitiveness ranking.

The DTI said the firm bureau database will expand the distribution of its credit information not only to individuals but to firms as well, a criterion measured by the World Bank in its Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Report under “depth of credit information index.”

“The 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,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said.

“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,” Lopez added.
Lopez said this will contribute to increasing banks’ efficiency in processing loan applications.

Following the data protest filed by the Philippine government in 2018, the WB accepted the data correction request 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 percent of the total adult population in the Philippines, exceeding the five percent 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,” the DTI said.

TransUnion president and CEO Pia Arellano emphasized the importance of using information to empower its 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,” she added.

The Philippines jumped a record 29 notches in the World Bank’s EODB report 2020 to rank 95th out of 190 economies across the globe.

Last year, the Philippines was at 124th place. Its overall score went up to 62.8 this year from 57.68 last year.