The Central Bank of Bahrain issued the new guidelines to the BENEFIT Company with regard to keeping the negative information about clients through Credit Reference Bureau.
The initiative aims at addressing the issue of possible non-remittance of Royal Gesture of BD 1000 due to the negative information being kept by the BENEFIT. BENEFIT is responsible for the operation of the Credit Reference Bureau and the organization of the process of keeping records of clients in the negative database in its system.
According to the directive, it is not permissible for the Benefit Company to keep records of negative credit to any customer for a period of more than five years from the date of the settlement between the client and the bank or from the date of closing the account for any reason.
The CBB has issued guidance on February 7, 2011 on the basis of observations that some citizens might not receive the BD 1000 financial assistance announced by HM the King because of negative information held in credit information system, despite the improvement in their financial position.
“The direction takes effect from the date of issuance,” the CBB in a statement said.