The Financial Services Commission announced that the government approved a revision bill for the Enforcement Decree of the Specialized Credit Finance Business Act at the cabinet meeting held on December 3. This revision will allow specialized credit finance businesses, such as credit card companies, to concurrently manage and operate a business credit bureau (CB) as prescribed under the Credit Information Use and Protection Act.

Under the current legal framework, credit card businesses are only allowed to operate and provide credit information management service for individuals and credit rating service for sole proprietors (self-employed business owners) based on the diverse types of financial and non-financial data that they have accumulated in the process of operating payment services.

However, handling (collecting, analyzing, and providing) credit information for business and corporate entities has not been allowed under the current legal framework since the Enforcement Decree does not specifically include business CB as a concurrent business operation that can be assumed by specialized credit finance businesses. Thus, this amendment adds business CB as a concurrent business operation that can be performed by specialized credit finance businesses.

The revised Enforcement Decree will broaden the scope of data-driven services provided by specialized credit finance businesses and help to improve the overall business credit rating services in the financial sector, which will ultimately help to boost financial access and inclusiveness for small businesses.

The revision will take effect on the day of promulgation (December 10, tentatively).

The FSC will continue to work on regulatory improvements to facilitate the provision of more data-driven services by specialized credit finance businesses.

* Please refer to the attached PDF for details.