A report by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) revealed that politicians made the highest number of queries concerning their personal credit score in 2017.
According to the report, politicians who contested in the 2017 General Election were the most frequent clients served by credit reference bureaus (CRBs) as they sought to track their compliance on repayment of loans.
Data from the three licensed CRBs - Transunion, Metropol and Creditinfo - indicated that the number of such queries had almost doubled between 2016 and 2017.
The high number of interactions between the politicians and the CRBs was also attributed to the fact that the candidates required clearance from the aggregators as a prequalification for elective posts.
"The requests for credit reports by customers increased by 56 per cent during the election year (2017), partly fuelled by demand for CRB clearance certificates as a requirement for eligibility to contest for various political posts," the CBK report read in part.
The report further indicated that there was a decline in the number of new loan request processed based on the individual's CRB score Ksh4.9 Million in 2016 to Ksh4.4 Million in 2017.
"The demand for credit was low during the year due to the long electioneering period and the credit squeeze by banks following enactment of the interest rate caps in September 2016," the report outlined.
The CBK, however, raised an issue with banks and other credit facilities over the underutilization of the data held by the CRBs.
The report recommended that the banks ought to use the data to reward customers having high credit scores with lower prices on their loans.
The Central Bank report noted, however, that political parties utilised the CRB scores in rating the integrity of candidates who wished to vie on their party's ticket.
