The Government is to fast-track the proposed legislation to establish a credit-reporting system.

The credit-reporting bill, first suggested more than 10 years ago, is now before a joint select committee of Parliament and Prime Minister Golding is anxious for it to be enacted into law.

"Yesterday (Monday) I had a meeting with Andrew Holness, who is leader of the House of Represen-tatives, and Minister (Audley) Shaw, who has responsibility for the bill, to try to see if we can get it through that committee as soon as possible so that we can bring it into law," Golding announced yesterday.

However, the prime minister's agenda could be delayed based on concerns already voiced by some bankers.

Officials of the Jamaica Bankers' Association recently contended that some current provisions of the draft legislation were not workable.

Perhaps the biggest concern for the bankers is the question of at what stage customers' consent would be required.

The legislation in its current form requires the credit-information providers to first obtain customer consent.

Similarly, for a credit bureau to release credit information, it would have to seek the customer's consent.

The bankers fear that this would increase the time to access credit.

The concerns of the bankers have already found favour with some legislators and this could delay the passage of the bill.

Every Jamaican qualified

While not commenting on the concerns of the bankers, Golding argued that the proposed system would allow every Jamaican to have a credit record.

"And a credit record is important because if I'm a lender and you are coming to borrow money and you bring a house title with you, but somebody else comes and he doesn't have a house title but he has a (good) credit record .... I'm going to be more inclined to lend that person than the person who has the title," added Golding.

The prime minister said he has asked the finance minister to ensure that the law be retroactive so that a person's credit history can be tracked "five, 10 years in the past".

The prime minister was speaking yesterday during the launch of a compensation and benefits report on small and micro enterprises done by the recently launched Silver Stone & Platt Research Solutions Limited.

The report, the first ever in Jamaica, examines the salary trends and compensation packages of 56 small and micro enterprises.