Thanks mostly to the efforts of CRC Credit Bureau Limited, Nigeria’s leading credit bureau provider, credit penetration in the country has increased to 14%.
Although penetration has increased, the level is still lower than anticipated globally.
At the CRC Finance and Credit Conference 2024 held in Lagos on Wednesday, Dr. Tunde Popoola, the Group Managing Director and CEO of CRC Credit Bureau Limited, revealed this information.
He continued by saying that in the last 15 years of its existence, Nigeria had made considerable progress in terms of credit penetration.
The event’s topic, “Sustainable Financing Options: Innovations in Credit Risk Management,” doubled as the company’s 15th anniversary.
Popoola said that just 33 million Nigerians’ credit ratings were included in the CRC Credit Bureau Limited database, indicating that much work needs to be done to enable more Nigerians to obtain credit.
“33 million Nigerians have credit scores. 29.4 million searches were conducted in 2023. More than 10 million searches have been conducted in Q1, 2024. CRC has moved from one product in 2010 to 18, cutting across all value chains of lending,” he noted.
Popoola also disclosed that, in spite of the formidable obstacles to facilitating credit availability, CRC Bureau Limited and the nation’s authorities, particularly the Central Bank of Nigeria, were making some appreciable headway.
He said, “Today so many millions of Nigerians get loans on their phones and lenders rely on CRC to lend. The Credit Reporting Act signed in 2017 by the Buhari regime to back credit reporting and the backing of the CBN have boosted credit penetration over the years.”
Reminiscing on the journey so far for CRC Credit Bureau Limited, Popoola said, “15 years ago, this company received a licence from the CBN to operate. Specifically, in January 2010, CRC was launched. Our business is to ease access to credit in Nigeria. Credit report was the initial product launched but many more products have come on board since then, however, a few organisations/banks are using them.”
