In recent years, China’s credit reporting market has developed rapidly, with the continuous expansion of credit reporting business entities and an increasing diversity of credit reporting service applications. The protection of credit rights faces new situations and tasks. In order to better protect the legitimate rights and interests of information subjects and promote the high-quality development of China’s credit reporting industry, the People’s Bank of China recently revised and released the “Credit Reporting Complaint Handling Procedures” (referred to as the “Procedures”).
The “Procedures” are based on the actual development of China’s credit reporting market, adhering to the basic principles of legality and compliance, convenience and benefit to the people, precise relief, and efficient performance. They comprehensively revised and improved the credit reporting complaint handling system from aspects such as smoothing complaint channels, clarifying complaint jurisdiction, simplifying complaint requirements, optimizing handling processes, and standardizing handling documents.
The main revisions include:
（i）Simplifying complaint requirements, optimizing handling processes, and improving handling standardization. It requires branches of the People’s Bank of China to uniformly publish complaint channels on their official websites, simplify identity verification requirements for complainants, add processes such as material review, complaint suspension, and consolidation, and standardize formats for relevant documents such as complaint applications, complaint replies, and termination notices.
（ii）Unifying the authority and jurisdiction of credit reporting complaints. It clarifies that credit reporting complaints are under the jurisdiction of the branches of the People’s Bank of China where the respondent is located, achieving the unity of the subject of credit reporting complaint acceptance and credit reporting supervision, with equal rights and responsibilities.
（iii）Strengthening system design to guide complainants to safeguard their rights correctly. It specifies complaint acceptance standards, requiring complaints that meet the acceptance conditions to be accepted, and strengthening the obligation to inform complaints that do not meet the acceptance conditions. It clarifies the scope of credit reporting complaint acceptance and improves the precision of credit reporting relief. It adds termination clauses for situations such as providing false materials or filing complaints under false identities, guiding complainants to safeguard their rights in accordance with the law and regulations.
The release of the “Procedures” is conducive to improving the convenience of credit reporting complaints, reducing the cost of complaints, facilitating the people to protect their legitimate credit rights and interests, and enhancing the quality and efficiency of credit reporting complaint handling. In the next step, the People’s Bank of China will continue to deeply implement the development ideology centered on the people, practice the concept of credit for the people, continue to do a good job in protecting the credit rights and interests of information subjects, and promote the high-quality development of China’s credit reporting industry.