Bank on this?

RBI checks out credit checker Perfios

A nine-year-old firm, that claims to be India’s largest, assesses creditworthiness of loan-seekers. But it is walking a fine line on data security. Can regulation be its inflection point?

Arundhati Ramanathan, 2 Aug 2017

Perfios has had to slowly build acceptance for its service as it uses screen scraping as one of the ways to collect data from bank statements

Lending institutions, for which this service is the most beneficial, are also spooked easily due to possible security risks

The Reserve Bank of India’s guidelines will eliminate some of the concerns about this business

But many aspects of the regulation are still unclear

Taking a loan is bittersweet. While there is someone to bail you out in time of need, the paperwork for getting a loan approval is a drag. There is a whole machinery involved, and it is far from efficient. The documents go to the lender’s back-office for processing. The details are entered manually on a spreadsheet, leaving room for clerical errors. Then, spreadsheets are computed. Finally, a credit team judges your creditworthiness.

AUTHOR

Arundhati Ramanathan

Arundhati is Bengaluru-based. She is interested in how people use money in the digital age and how new economies will take shape based on that interaction. She has spent over 10 years reporting and writing on various subjects. Previous stints were at Mint, Outlook Business and Reuters.

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RBI checks out credit checker Perfios