Foreign remittance information to be included in Credit Information Bureau database
The change follows amendments made by the Bank to the regulations of the Bureau in September, requiring lending organisations to provide the body with information on customers’ remittances. The Bureau will be tasked with storing the information in its database for a year. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge
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The database of the Credit Information Bureau, a body providing banks and other financial organisations across Georgia with information about financial and credit circumstances of customers, will expand its database to include information on money remittances from abroad, the National Bank of Georgia said on Wednesday.
The NBG said the change, set to come into force starting March 1, was being adopted to “simplify the lending process and increase access to credit products” for customers.
Data on remittances that will be stored in the expanded database will include the origin country of the remittance, date of transfer - if available - as well as the date of cashing out, recipient ID, their nationality, the amount of money in the transaction and the currency it is completed in.
The change follows amendments made by the Bank to the regulations of the Bureau in September, requiring lending organisations to provide the body with information on customers’ remittances. The Bureau will be tasked with storing the information in its database for a year.
While noting the expansion of the database was aimed to “enable remittance recipients to manage their data” and help them “receive loans on best terms”, NBG Vice President Papuna Lezhava also said customers could opt out of providing the information to the Bureau.
The Pension Agency of Georgia has estimated the net asset value of the country’s pension fund at ₾2.97 billion ($1.1 bln).
Commercial banks in Georgia loaned ₾44.80 billion ($16.94bln) and received deposits of ₾44.31 billion ($16.76bln) in December 2022, the latest data from the National Bank of Georgia shows.
Georgian Deputy Finance Minister Mikheil Dundua on Wednesday announced interest rates on pension-backed loans would see annual reduction, in comments on Government initiatives for pensioners and socially vulnerable citizens.
New transparency requirements will come into play for financial organisations operating in Georgia starting April 1 in a bid to better protect the rights of consumers, the National Bank announced on Friday.
With the involvement of experts from the World Bank, the national bank of Georgia has developed new transparency requirements for financial organisations operating in the country in a bid to ensure transparency of prices of financial products sold in combination and encourage competition in the market, the NBG said on Tuesday.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili on Thursday vetoed the amendments to the country’s organic law on the National Bank, adopted by the Parliament on an expedited basis. As she explained the changes were “neither necessary, urgent nor reasoned”.
Commercial banks in Georgia loaned ₾44.47 billion ($16.9 bln) and received deposits of ₾43.64 billion ($16.5 bln) in January 2023, the latest data from the National Bank of Georgia shows.
Commercial banks in Georgia loaned ₾44.45 billion ($17.27bln) and received deposits of ₾43.61 billion ($16.94 bln) in February 2023, the latest data from the National Bank of Georgia shows.
The gross external debt of Georgia increased by $1.4 billion during the fourth quarter of 2022 and stood at $23.5 billion at the end of the year, the National Bank said in its latest update of national debt statistics on Friday.
The Pension Agency of Georgia on Friday said pension assets in its fund were worth ₾3.66 billion ($1.42bln), while net assets amounted to ₾631 million ($245mln).