CTOS

If you have experience in getting a housing loan or hire purchase, you might hear about CCRIS and CTOS. I've explained about CCRIS previously and today I would like to share about CTOS. CTOS stands for Credit Tip Off Service, it is a credit reporting agency (CRA) that collates information from various sources to aid decision making processes, especially on loans or credit applications.

PTPTN Defaulters Listed under CCRIS

Since its inception in Year 1997, National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) has approved loans for 2.17 million students, of which 17387 had been exempted from repaying their loans for having graduated with first class honours. However, it was reported in July that 418094 people had yet to repay their PTPTN loans worth RM 2.8bil.

PTPTN has taken actions on the defaulters by publishing the names of defaulters in the newspapers and barring them from leaving the country because they ignored repeated reminders to repay their loans for more than five years. On 20th August 2013, Second Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said that PTPTN would work together with Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to include the names of defaulters on the CCRIS.

After 2 days, on 22nd August 2013, the government announced that the proposal has been put on hold due to an almost unified opposition response from the people. PTPTN will adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach to study the real problem behind the long list of defaulters and everyone is welcomed to give their feedback to PTPTN on ways to help defaulters repay their loans.

The impact of listing the names of defaulters on CCRIS is that it will be very difficult for them to apply for credit cards, personal loans, car loans and housing loans. This is because their installment on CCRIS is in arrears (debt overdue). If they can't borrow from financial institutions, they might end up borrowing from loan sharks. This will create even more social problems.

To ensure the sustainability of PTPTN and also no one will be jeopardised in any measures going to be implemented, the government should carefully study the reasons behind the failure of borrowers to repay their loans first then only take the necessary action.

CCRIS Part II

In my previous post, I shared about what is CCRIS and credit report. You can get your credit report for free of charge once every 3 month from Bank Negara office. So how does the credit report look like?

This is the header of the actual credit report. The detailed credit report displays your credit history information as follow:

1. All your current loans obtained for yourself, jointly in a joint account, in your capacity as owner of a sole proprietorship and as partner in a partnership/ professional body (exclude accounts which have been settled); 
2. All your current loans under close supervision by financial institutions (Special Attention Account);
3. Your applications approved in the previous 12 months for yourself, jointly in a joint account, in your capacity as owner of a sole proprietorship and as partner in a partnership/ professional body (exclude applications that have been rejected, deleted and cancelled); 
4. All pending applications for yourself, jointly in a joint account, in your capacity as owner of a sole proprietorship and as partner in a partnership/ professional body.

This is the explanation of each field in the credit report:

No.	Field Name	Description
1	No.	Refers to sequence number in the credit report
2	Approval Date	Refers to the approval date by the financial institution
3	Status	Refers to the status of the credit facility: Outstanding, Restructured credit facility, Rescheduled credit facility, Outstanding from call of guarantee/standby LC, Pending decision by financial institution, Approved by financial institution
4	Capacity	Refers to whether the loan is taken directly or indirectly by the customer: Own, Joint, Sole, Partner, Prof
5	Lender	Refers to name of the financial institution which lends
6	Branch	Refers to branch code of the financial institution
7	Facility	Refers to the type of facility offered: Housing Loans/Financing, Credit Card, Purchase of Passenger Car, etc.
8	Account/Application Number	Refers to the account number of the facility
9	Total Outstanding Balance (RM)	Refers to total outstanding amount for each facility type. It includes “principal outstanding + interest outstanding + other charges”.
10	Date Balance Updated	Refers to date when the total outstanding was last reported.
11	Limit (RM)	Refers to total limit approved by the lending institution for each of the credit facility.
12	Collateral Type	Refers to type of collateral pledged for the credit facility 00 = Clean 10 = Properties 21 = Quoted shares 22 = Unquoted shares 23 = Unit trusts 29 = Other financial assets 30 = Motor vehicles (registered with JPJ) 40 = Other vehicles/carriers 50 = Concessions and other contractual rights 60 = Plant and machinery 70 = Financial guarantee 80 = Negative pledge 81 = Supportive letters 90 = Other assets 99 = Secured – details unknown
13	Principal Repayment Term	Refers to frequency of the principal repayment term for each facility type
14	Installment in Arrears for Last 12 Months	Refers to the number of installments in arrears for the last 12 months 1. A blank means that the data is not reported. 2. A zero means that the loan is not in arrears.
15	Legal Status	Refers to the latest legal action status taken against the customer arising from a default on the credit account If blank, there is no legal action taken
16	Date Status Updated	Refers to date of latest legal action status

If you find out that the credit report is inaccurate, it is better to liaise directly with the respective financial institution for clarification and update. The financial institution must immediately rectify any inaccurate or incomplete information by sending the amendment to the Credit Bureau to reflect your latest credit position.

CCRIS Part I

Have you ever got rejected by bank when you applied for a credit card? Did you wonder why your application for Credit Card was unsuccessful although your income fulfilled the minimum requirement and you provided all the necessary documents?

Other than your pay slips and EPF statements, the bank also checked CCRIS during approval process. CCRIS stands for Central Credit Reference Information System. It is a computerized database system contains credit information on about 9 million borrowers in Malaysia. If you have a hire purchase, personal loan, mortgage or credit card, then your information will certainly be found in CCRIS.

CCRIS is maintained by the Credit Bureau under Bank Negara Malaysia. The Credit Bureau collects credit information on borrowers from lending financial institutions and synthesises the information into credit reports via CCRIS. These credit reports that contain up-to-date and accurate information on prospective borrowers enable the financial institutions to make assessments and decisions on credit applications.

So are we able to get our own credit report from CCRIS? Yes, if you're staying in Klang Valley, Pulau Pinang, Johor Bahru, Kuala Terengganu, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching, you can just go to the Bank Negara office to request for the credit report. In Part II, I'll share about how to interpret the report.