Bureau Business | 5th Edition | | |  What's been keeping us busy… | | Is your organisation closing for the festive period? | As another year draws to a close, we're taking stock of our achievements and the progress made in 2016. Thank you for your part in continuing to evolve our credit information space and improve the work of our industry. | In this, our final newsletter for 2016, we want to welcome Mike Reilly from Compuscan who will be taking up the role of CBA chair. Mike is a seasoned professional in the credit information industry, and we look forward to working closely with him in 2017. And with that, we must say farewell to Geoff Miller who has served as chair since June 2015, and who is returning to Chicago with his family early next year. Thank you, Geoff, for your leadership during a challenging period for the industry. We also bid goodbye to Michelle Beetar from Experian, and wish her well in her new role. For the rest of you – safe travels and a restful holiday if you're taking time off this festive season. If not, happy staycation! | New CBA Chair Mike Reilly | What's been keeping us busy… | Registration of resellers It's been an eventful year in terms of legislative and regulatory developments. The National Credit Regulator (NCR) published its Regulation 19(13) guideline to the credit bureaux, which affects the conditions of registration for credit bureaus, and prescribes the manner and form in which consumer credit information must be shared by data providers to credit bureaus. It has also issued a guideline requiring all resellers to register as credit bureaux with the NCR. This process is currently underway as the NCR engages with resellers. Info Regulator confirmed PoPIA continues to be a hot topic. After a few initial delays, the President has announced the appointments of the Information Regulator chair and members, in accordance with section 39 of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (Act of 4 of 2013) and on the recommendation of the National Assembly. As expected, advocate Pansy Tlakula was confirmed as full-time member and chair (effectively fulfilling the role of Information Regulator). She will take on this role, together with the full-time and part-time members, from today (1 December 2016) and are expected to serve in these roles for five years. Maintenance orders on credit reports The Regulations to the Maintenance Amendment Act are being prepared by the Department of Justice. We anticipate these to be published in the first quarter of 2017. Of course, we are particularly interested in the requirement that compels the courts to share information around the enforcement of maintenance orders with credit bureaus, and with persons who extend credit to consumers. We continue to keep a close eye on this and will keep our membership informed. | Extra bite for the NCR The Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) appealed to parliament to be given scope to present further amendments in a bid to strengthen the authority and scope of power of both the DTI and NCR. This follows an unsuccessful attempt to prosecute a major credit provider over breaches of the National Credit Act. Specifically, new regulations would enable the NCR to determine and penalize reckless lending, tightening the definitions of what constitutes "reckless". As DebtFree Digi reports: "The parliamentary committee has given approval to the DTI to now approach cabinet for the go-ahead to try introduce a second National Credit Amendment Bill which would contain these measures. This would follow a period of research into possible amendments to be proposed and then a bill open for comment and eventual ratification..." Project Evolution Project Evolution is currently sitting at almost 78% compliance. This means that approximately 50 million records are currently signed off or already being submitted in the new L700 v2 format. An incredible task! But, with the deadline to convert to L700 v2 having already expired, all data providers who are not yet compliant will need to make special application to SACRRA to avoid penalties. Bureau development for overdrafts, mortgage pre-registrations, and prescribed debt, is well on track. | |  Consumer education drive We continue to constantly look for opportunities to educate credit consumers on the power and importance of accessing their reports. To this end, we've been featured online, in newspapers, magazines and on radio in 2016, as well as attending industry and consumer-facing events A significant part of this has been our successful Know Your Credit Status campaign. And we believe it's really starting to pay dividends. The latest Credit Bureau Monitor (CBM) report shows that there was a 12% growth (quarter-on-quarter) of persons accessing their free credit report. This is a testament to all of our joint – yours and ours – hard work in this critical endeavour! We will continue to focus on this in 2017, and to drive joint initiatives with key stakeholders, such as the NCR. We are also so pleased confirm that we have agreed to partner with UNISA once again in 2017, to repeat – and even improve on – our very fruitful 2016 educational event. | Credit Bureau Association
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