The India story: Retail credit bureau coverage is still under-penetrated

Retail credit bureau coverage is still under-penetrated in the country. ­­­While the latest data set is for calendar 2017, it tells you that in the preceding five years, the percentage of the adult populace covered rose to 43.5 per cent. However, this is still below many developed countries. Australia leads the pack with 95 per cent coverage (of adults), Japan comes next at 93 per cent, and Malaysia at 83 per cent.

 

The slow coverage of new to credit makes the journey more challenging — as past credit histories is still difficult to come by. If you were to look at both the product leverage (defined as the number of existing loans a borrower has while taking a new loan) and the balance leverage (outstanding balances of existing loans a borrower has while taking a new loan), it tells you the same universe of customers are getting bombarded. It follows that increasing credit bureau coverage can give a fillip to credit penetration to a new lot of customers as we go ahead.   

 

Source: BCG