The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has confirmed recent reports that it plans to overhaul its online credit system in order to provide citizens with more detailed “economic identification.”
On 22 April the Chinese central bank announced that it was in the process of making improvements to its credit system, with a focus on upgrades to system functionality and optimisation of credit report contents, as well as improvements to product processing, service methods and systems administration.
The upgraded version of PBOC’s credit reports will include information on nationality, joint loans, as well as personal repayment records for the past five years, as compared to current personal credit reports which include two years of regular repayment records alongside five years of late payment records.
PBOC did not provide a clear timeframe for the launch of the new system, while also indicating that it would not include information on salaries or utilities payments as previously reported.
According to PBOC data the credit system that it launched in 2006 has already gathered information on around 990 million natural persons and 25.918 million enterprises and other organisations in China.
Interested parties have the right to obtain personal credit reports twice per year free of charge, with the number of personal inquiries seeing a sharp increase in recent years to reach 96.883 million in 2018.
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