NamibiaCredit bureaus: registration, sale of credit performance information, and the rights of data subjects
In force since .
A data brokers rule binding private bodies.
- Enforcement body
- Bank of Namibia
- Instrument type
- a regulation made under an act
- Obligation class
- Licensing, Data subject rights, Governance, Reporting
What it requires
- If you receive or investigate credit applications, credit agreements or payment histories, compile data from them and issue reports on individuals or businesses, register with the Bank of Namibia as a credit bureau before you offer the service, and do not also act as a credit provider or debt collection agency.
- Keep the consumer information you receive confidential, and release it to subscribers only as the data subject concerned has explicitly authorised in writing, subject to the other provisions of the regulation and any other law.
- Do not hold in your database or include in a credit report any information on a data subject's race, colour, ethnic origin, sex, religion or social or economic status.
- Do not sell, lease or transfer your credit performance information, apart from selling credit reports, except to another credit bureau with the approval of the Bank of Namibia; aggregated information may be sold only if the personal information of data subjects is not disclosed.
- Maintain rigorous standards of security and reliability, and protect data against loss, corruption, destruction, misuse, undue access or disclosure.
- Give a natural person who requests it a free copy of his or her credit report once every 12 months, inform the person of the right to challenge the information, and on a challenge endorse the report, ask the information provider for credible evidence within seven working days, and within 20 working days either give the person the evidence or remove the information and all record of it.
- Submit periodic returns and statistics to the Bank of Namibia in the format and frequency it determines, and furnish any record the Bank requests during an inspection.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
What this law does
A person may not conduct business as a credit bureau, or hold out to the public as offering a service customarily offered by a credit bureau, unless registered as a credit bureau under the Credit Bureau Regulations, 2014. The Bank of Namibia licenses, regulates and supervises credit bureaus.
A credit bureau may not sell, lease or transfer its credit performance information, apart from its own business of selling credit reports, except to another credit bureau with the approval of the Bank of Namibia. A credit bureau must protect the confidentiality of the consumer information it receives under the regulations.
A credit bureau may not hold in its database or include in a credit report information on the race, colour, ethnic origin, sex, religion or social or economic status of the data subject. A data subject who is a natural person may obtain a free copy of his or her credit report from a credit bureau on request once every 12 months. A credit bureau that is challenged on a credit report must request the credit performance information provider to provide credible evidence within seven working days.
The Credit Bureau Regulations, 2014 were made under the Bank of Namibia Act 15 of 1997 and are listed by the Legal Assistance Centre as surviving under section 87 of the Bank of Namibia Act 1 of 2020.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app provides financial services or processes personal data.
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