Compuscan was proud to launch Uganda’s first credit bureau based scorecard, CompuScore, on 8 December 2011. The event took place at the Emin Pasha Hotel, Kampala, and was attended by the Governor : Bank of Uganda, as well as by several CEO’s and bank officials of regulated financial sector institutions in Uganda. Various members of the broader financial sector stakeholder community were also in attendance.

Compuscan Credit Reference Bureau in Uganda, a subsidiary of Compuscan Information Technologies based in South Africa, and licensed by Bank of Uganda to run and operate the country’s credit reference bureau, is pleased to announce to clients, and all stakeholders, that Compuscan Holdings and ScoreSharp, a specialist credit scoring and risk management consultancy have concluded a definitive agreement to merge the organisations which will see ScoreSharp form part of the Compuscan Group.

Uganda's financial sector has shown marked growth in recent years, and great progress has been made in its regulation. In March 2010, 28 regulated financial institutions were providing the country with financial services through 488 registered branch offices, compared with just 270 or so branches at the end of 2006. Despite the successes achieved, more than 70 % of Ugandans (compared to 82 % in 2007) have no access to formal financial services, with poor people and rural populations at a particular disadvantage.

A case study presentation of credit bureau data files in Uganda of how some of the smallest borrowers in the country are committing to repay large loans elsewhere.

All lending institutions that are regulated by the Bank of Uganda (BOU) have been sharing positive and negative credit data in the form of loan  application and loan performance data to the credit bureau. Since the launch of the credit bureau in 2009, data from ongoing monthly submissions and historical extracts that have been collected has enabled the bureau to start seeing information that was previously unavailable for review. Much like many emerging market economies, Uganda has suffered from not having a reliable and unique national identification system. This was an obstacle to any early plans to deliver a credit bureau and all initial efforts were compromised. Bank of Uganda’s requirement was that all borrowers should be  properly identified and as part of the credit bureau project all borrowers are now required through bank regulations to be enrolled on the biometric based Financial Card System (developed and supported by Compuscan). Through this system each borrower has been able to get a unique identity and the status quo of no identity number has been restored. With the workable identity solution, the credit bureau was able to be developed and deployed successfully.