New plan for lenders to use official information on personal income
When making decisions on issuing loans (microloans), banks and other lenders will use only information on current official income of households. Acting jointly with stakeholders from various ministries and agencies, the Bank of Russia has adopted a roadmap defining the main stages of transitioning to a new procedure for using information. Last year, the Russian Federation President instructed policy-makers to establish such an obligation for lenders.
It was also advised to provide lenders with access to an information system allowing them to receive up-to-date official information about borrowers’ income within one minute. According to the roadmap, the required set of data will be made available to lenders by March 2026.
Subject to individuals’ consent, lenders will obtain these data from the information systems of the Federal Tax Service of Russia and the Social Fund of Russia via the Digital Profile. This tool enables financial institutions to use customer data from government information systems and provide services without hard-copy documents. As concluded by market participants, stakeholders, and the Bank of Russia, this is the most effective way to obtain up-to-date information about personal income. Lenders may also use other sources of information about official incomes of households. The transition to using exclusively information about official income of people will allow banks and other lenders to more accurately assess borrowers’ income and will help the Bank of Russia to more effectively limit risks associated with the growth of households’ debt burden.