Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential benefit to (a) small businesses seeking access to finance and (b) the alternative finance industry of implementing the Commercial Credit Data sharing scheme.

The Government’s SME credit data sharing scheme will make it easier for challenger banks and alternative finance providers to check the creditworthiness of businesses, which will improve the chances of them being able to provide finance to SMEs.

Each of the banks designated by the Government has received a formal letter from at least one of the designated credit reference agencies to request the data that banks are required to share under the scheme. All nine designated banks will therefore be sharing data by the end of the year.

The Treasury’s assessment of the impact of the scheme was published alongside the relevant legislation:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2015/273/pdfs/ukia_20150273_en.pdf

The regulations include a requirement for the Treasury to review the scheme, and the Competition and Markets Authority’s final report under the Retail banking market investigation recommended that the Treasury review the scheme in summer 2018.