Barbadians Urged to Repay Loans on Time to Avoid Negative Credit Scores, Says Creditinfo Managing Director

Barbadians are being warned to repay their loans, credit cards and hire purchase accounts on time to avoid being slapped with bad credit scores.

Managing director of Creditinfo Barbados Ltd, Kim Lewis, said consumers should be aware that their credit history affects the ability to access credit from legitimate organisations.

“Overall, the majority of Barbadians have prioritised paying off their debts. Based on the analysis, the average Barbadian still pays their accounts for the most part on time. But based on what our database is showing, persons should continue to maintain a trend as best as possible of paying their accounts on and before time to avoid companies having to write you letters or assigning your accounts to bailiffs.”

2023 showed there was still a higher ratio of good credit ratings when compared to bad ones.

“In 2019, 58 per cent of accounts rated between 1 and 2, whereas five per cent of accounts rated 3, nine per cent rated 4-5 and 21 per cent of accounts rated 6-7. There was a slight decrease in the good ratings 1-2 between 2020 to 2023. For example, in 2020, 53 per cent of accounts rated 1-2, in 2021 49 per cent of accounts rated 1-2, in 2022 46 per cent rated 1-2 and that percentage fell to 36 in 2023.”

When it came to credit ratings, Lewis said all that information was stored in the bureau’s database.“When you have a bad credit rating [it is] because . . . of an issue . . . . Our database does not reflect issues, it reflects figures,” she said.

“But there [are] some customers who have legitimate customer service issues with a company and would not pay their account, which is not necessarily a good thing to do. What I would suggest in instances like that would be to go into the company and have a conversation with them and ask them if, until the customer service is resolved, they could put a pause on the payments or put a pause on how it affects the credit rating. “(AH)