CHENNAI: Thinking of postponing payment of your phone bill? Better think again. If the Credit Information Bureau (India) Ltd (CIBIL) succeeds in its proposal to source payment data from telecom service providers, your poor phone bill payment record could turn out to be the reason you don’t get a loan.

The country’s largest database collector on borrowers, more commonly known as CIBIL, and the credit rating it gives an individual, are one of the first things lenders check when it comes to a loan application.

According to CIBIL chairman M V Nair, the firm is contemplating sourcing data from alternate channels, including bill payment records of telecom service providers and insurers.

“We have written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority and the Reserve Bank of India to enable us to access data from service providers,” said Nair, speaking on the sidelines of the Fifth Annual Credit Information Conference. “This will facilitate an indicative credit score for first-time borrowers,” he said.

While the proposal is still in the nascent stage, its implementation would mean that CIBIL scores of first-time borrowers may be calculated based on their phone bill and insurance payment record.

Currently, banks do not have an easy way to check the credit-worthiness of an individual applying for a loan of any kind if he or she is a first-time borrower. Since banks started accessing CIBIL data in 2007, they have grown increasingly reliant on the credit score provided by CIBIL as a measure of credit-worthiness. A CIBIL score is very important from the borrower’s point of view. According to CEO and managing director of Chennai-based Lakshmi Vilas Bank, Rakesh Sharma, an applicant’s CIBIL score is one of the first things that banks check when processing a loan, while it’s by no means the only one.