In case you missed it, The Vice-President of the Republic Of Ghana, H.E. Mahamudu Bawumia made a statement claiming to introduce individual credit scoring in the country, made possible by the possession of the Ghana Card. However, it was pointed out by IMANI that credit referencing has been going on in Ghana since 2010 and that two companies, XDS Data and Dun & Bradstreet, are currently licensed to provide that service. Furthermore, more than 9 million adults in Ghana have been captured in the credit databases of these two companies already.
Wondering why there seems to be a media frenzy surrounding the incident? Was H.E VP Bawumia wrong? And how have IMANI and XDS Data garnered lots of attention from this?
Vice-President’s Mahamadu Bawumia’s spokespersons came out to debunk this assertion by claiming that whilst the companies offer credit referencing, they currently don’t offer credit scoring and that Ghana Card will make it possible for them to do this.
IMANI however insisted that the companies offer both credit reports and credit scores as part of their credit referencing services.
Things took an interesting turn when XDS Data rebutted the claim from IMANI, which was curious because the think tank was said to have picked their data off of the XDS and D&B websites (click here to view Asaase Radio’s interview with Gabriel Ofori Yeboah of Dun & Bradstreet showing that all the credit bureaus in Ghana offer both credit reports and credit scores).
On the 5th of December 2023, XDS Data released a press statement saying that while they may possess the capacity to produce credit scores, they had not offered the service because they require the Ghana Card penetration to reach a high of 90% before they can be sure that borrowers’ full credit exposure has been captured.
IMANI’s Franklin Cudjoe and Bright Simons however found a way to not only track old posts off the social media pages of XDS Data, but also retrieve an older version of their website which nullifies the press statement that the company released. The detective work was intriguing because as soon as the controversy started building, XDS turned off its website so that none of the content IMANI claims to have picked from the website could be found.
Furthermore, it was observed that XDS has a Nigerian affiliate branch offering the same service in a market with only 10% penetration of the national ID card by the time they started offering the credit scores. The whole thing has thus baffled the majority who understand the issue because of their reluctance to run the same service in Ghana even though the national ID card (Ghana Card) penetration is over 50%.
Keep in mind that Messrs Simons and Cudjoe have been asked to apologize over the incident. (Click here for another article from Asaase Radio on the matter)
What should we make of this Bawumia, XDSData & IMANI triangle? Well, Jamie says…
It seems rather off that XDS Data took down their website right around the time their press statement went up (the site is back up now, you can confirm that by clicking here)
It might be safe to assume that they probably got pressured and had to hastily backtrack, but you know what they say… the internet never forgets!
Personally, I would have loved that they stood their ground, but hey, can’t I say I blame them either way.
What do all you good people make of the Bawumia-IMANI-XDS Data saga?
Thanks for taking the time to read the article, and feel free to share your thoughts on this Bawumia-IMANI-XDS Data issue!
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