China records 150,000 individual credit inquiries in June

China's central bank said on Thursday more than 150,000 individual credit inquiries were recorded nationwide in June, showing that more people are aware of their own credit records.

However, no figure for credit inquiries in May were available for comparison. But the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said the Chinese are becoming more credit-conscious, compared with three years ago when around 1,000 inquiries were registered in January, 2005.

The credit portfolio covers citizens' basic information, loan records, credit card information and other data including whether they had paid their phone bills on time.

A credit information system that covers more than 13 million companies and 600 million-plus individuals has been established nationwide at the urging of the PBOC.

The central bank in recent years has endeavored to improve individuals and companies' credit awareness, which is still dwarfed by that in many western countries.

Banks could check clients' credit backgrounds through the system when receiving loan applications from individuals and enterprises, which greatly boosted banks' risk control.

Individuals and enterprises also enjoy the rights to ask credit information management agencies to rectify erroneous credit record items. More than 2,000 corrections have been ferreted out and corrected to date.

So far inquiries into credit records are free of charge in China.