THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has gone live with an online credit risk database designed to make it easier for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to secure loans.
BSP Deputy Governor Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said 33 banks have joined the Credit Risk Database Philippines (CRDPh), a web-based scoring system developed with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) from 2020 to 2023.
The Philippines is the first country outside Japan to adopt the CRD.
“This automated scoring system lets banks assess SME borrowers without relying on profitability history,” Romulo-Puyat said.
“It addresses information gaps, improves loan pricing, reduces collateral dependence, and ultimately boosts SME financing,” she added.
The CRD draws on anonymized financial, non-financial, and performance data from participating banks to generate probability-of-default scores for borrowers with similar profiles. The database was launched in 2020 with 17 banks; the roster has nearly doubled since.
The live CRDPh is part of the BSP-JICA project’s second phase, which adds new services and lays out a transition to permanent operations. JICA has proposed setting up a Credit Risk Database Operation Entity to run the system sustainably and maintain scoring accuracy.
BSP Governor Eli Remolona Jr. has called the CRD “the plumbing of the banking system,” saying it can help close the SME funding gap.
Lending below mandated levels
Despite the new tool, lending to SMEs remains low. BSP data show banks lent P326 billion to SMEs as of end-March 2025, up 15 percent from a year earlier but equivalent to only 2.76 percent of their loan portfolio — just above the 2 percent minimum required by law.
Universal and commercial banks posted a 2.47 percent compliance rate with P266 billion in SME loans. Thrift banks lent P39 billion for a 5.3 percent rate, while rural and cooperative banks had P20.3 billion in loans for an 8.3 percent rate.
The Magna Carta for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises requires banks to allocate 10 percent of their loan portfolio to small businesses — 8 percent for micro and small enterprises, and 2 percent for SMEs. MSMEs make up 99.6 percent of registered firms and employ nearly 67 percent of the workforce, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority show.
