The China Construction Bank (CCB), one of the country's four largest state-owned commercial banks, is to establish its first national individual credit rating system, in a bid to ward off possible bad-loan risk in the booming personal loan market.

"The rating system, which is expected to be able to provide the bank with more objective understanding of its clients' credit status, will be a crucial step in enabling the bank to gain a larger stake in the retail banking market," Xin Shusen, general manager of the bank's retail banking department was quoted as saying by Wednesday's China Daily.

By linking all the bank's computer networks together, the rating system will contain all of CCB's credit records, for around 200 million clients nationwide, and a set of rating standards that will be used to evaluate the credit status of individual clients who apply for loans from CCB.

The move is believed to be another breakthrough in safeguarding the banking sector from possible lending risks and improving the objectiveness of ratings following the establishment of the country's first regional individual credit rating system in Shanghai in July.

The bank's retail services for individual consumers have undergone a sharp increase in recent years in the country's developed areas.

CCB will be able to decide whether to lend and how much to lend to individual clients based on historical consumer records and CCB's rating standards, according to Xin.

(Xinhua 11/08/2000)