Red-letter day looms when consumers can turn screw on ham-fisted lenders

The remaining fig leaf that covers bankers from charges of running a lending cartel should be stripped away on June 6 - the day when credit officers may begin trawling through an industry-wide pool of loan data to check how much money their customers owe rival lenders, and whether their repayments are up to date.

A moratorium on such unfettered fishing expeditions for white or positive consumer loan data was agreed by lenders when they began building their positive credit bureau over the objections of privacy campaigners in June 2003.

Ironically, the crisis-management moratorium was agreed at the very moment of the bureau's birth, when both bankers and policymakers - who had fought for years to introduce the credit-checking system and bring Hong Kong into line with global practice - ran scared of opening their own Pandora's box.

Fears were raised at the time that unrestricted trawling through the data at a time when the fragile economy needed all the help it could get might have triggered a credit crunch if worried lenders reduced or withdrew credit lines as a result of what they found.

As an interim step, therefore, lenders were limited to running checks through the accumulating data pile on single names only and by using only the names of existing customers who triggered a lawful check when they applied for a new loan, or a loan restructuring. Or first-time applicants for loans.

But with the economy on the rebound and borrowers back at work and returned to positive equity, those fears have subsided. The two-year moratorium, meanwhile, ends on June 2 and the Chicago-based global credit bureau provider contracted to get the service up and running, Trans Union, planned to throw open the doors to the data pool on the first Monday after the moratorium expired, it said.

That makes it June 6, which in all other respects is likely to be an ordinary day in Hong Kong, with no notable festivals or holidays to speak of (unless either Agobard, bishop and martyr of Lyon, or perhaps Jarlath of Ireland happen to be your patron saint); sunrise at 5.09am and sunset at 7.18pm; and a moon that will be new.