The Beijing municipal government and the People's Bank of China are going to jointly build from 2008 an information network on individual business and personal credit records.

The information collection and construction of the credit record system in Beijing will be completed by 2010, the Beijing News reported on Sunday, and will include details of criminal records from police.

The Beijing municipal government will help the central bank to build the database, which will be shared among banks, municipal governmental branches in charge of public security, social security, taxation, and governmental employees' housing funds administration, the newspaper said.

Meanwhile, people could get their own credit information or endorse others with written documents to check the history for them.

Neither the government nor the bank disclosed the cost for building such a virtual reality system.

Only selected governmental authorities and financial institutions could get access to the individual credit database, an official with the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission said, adding that credit history-related privacy will be strictly protected.

The government also said it is considering establishing some policy incentives, including preferable loan terms or taxation discounts, for businesses or people with good credit history, the newspaper reported.

Banks are among the primary beneficiaries of the establishment of a credit record network. China has roughly 31 million credit card holders, but issuers of the moment cannot get card holders' credit history via a universal network. Malicious evasion from loans leads to huge costs for banks every year.

In China, people can easily obtain credit cards by just submitting basic information such as names, jobs, salaries and contacts. Banks are unable to find out the credit history of first-time customers.

Liu Feng, a risks management specialist of the Agricultural Bank of China, said financial institutions urgently need credit records of individuals.

"It would not be difficult to digitize and share the financial information of customers among banks," Liu said, "but it'll be more helpful to banks for including other information, such as criminal record and taxation record, into the database."

"The combined information would sufficient describe fuller images of our customers," Liu said.

The scheduled credit record network, according to the plan of the municipal government, will include traffic violations of drivers, particular severe offense such as hit-and-run, and frauds of business people.

Inclusion of information other than financial status into the credit record database arouses debate.

A Chongqing lawyer said that negative personal information such as criminal records should not be included into people's credit records, which should largely be used for loans. The lawyer said such privacy should be strictly protected from being accessed by anyone other than law enforcement officials.

Mao Shoulong, a public administration professor at the Renmin University agreed that a combination of financial status with other personal backgrounds, like criminal records, would be helpful. He, however, said, "Alleged violations should not be recorded on people's credit history before their appeals to higher law enforcement bodies are completed."

(Xinhua News Agency December 10, 2007)