Dakar — More than 600 thousand customers have been registered in the database of the Credit Information Bureau (BIC), said the national director of the BCEAO for Senegal, Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo.

"The number of customers included in the BIC database stands at 643,593 customers, natural and legal persons, divided between credit institutions and decentralized financial systems (DFS), he said on the occasion of the quarterly meeting between the national director of the BCEAO and all the directors general of the banks and financial institutions in Senegal.

According to Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo, these performances were made possible thanks to the effects of the 2018 law amending the Uniform Law No. 2014-02 of 6 January 2014 regulating BICs, which made the prior consent of customers already beneficiaries of credits mandatory.

"At the end of June 2018, the impact of the amending law is materialized by the declaration to the BIC of more than 800,000 loan contracts granted before January 7, 2014, in favor of 559,000 customers of credit institutions and DFS", he informed.

The BIC, which has its headquarters in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, has been operational since the first of February 2016. The company has representative offices in all WAEMU member countries.

The objective of the establishment of the BIC is to reduce the asymmetry of information on the creditworthiness of borrowers and improve the financing, at a lower cost, of economic agents.

Its purpose is to collect data from financial institutions on the credit or payment history of a customer. Information that can be extended to public sources and billers.

This data is then processed to prepare credit reports and other value-added services that lenders could use in making credit decisions.