NICA charges professionals to create credit awareness desk

The National Institute of Credit Administration (NICA) has charged employers of credit professionals in the country to establish, in their offices, credit awareness desks for the existing and potential credit customers in their businesses.

This, it said, will enhance awareness on creditworthiness requirements, as well as how to overcome repayment challenges.

Speaking on this development, the registrar/chief executive officer, NICA, Prof. Chris Onalo said, this will further help to bridge the gap between the credit grantors/providers and their customers to whom they have granted creditlines and those whose applications are on cue.

“There’s need for the employers of credit professionals to introduce credit awareness desks or credit counseling desks. There should be a department where credit professionals can give some hours of discussion with the credit customer applicant,” he pointed out.

When a credit is approved, he said, there should be monitoring to know if the transaction is making good progress or there are challenges, adding that, the professional credit manager or controller should ask questions on issues like, “Do you have any problem? Do you have any difficulty? How is your business going? How prudent use of credit grows or expands a business? The consequences of a failed credit, and so on.”

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To him, “that interface will help to significantly educate credit customers, whether it is those that have borrowed money from financial institutions, or those who are distributors of manufactured products or good which they have collected from manufacturers on credit terms, etc. So, that desk must be there.”

As part of its duties on awareness creation, he said, as a statutory professional body with national mandate to oversee the development of credit management profession in Nigeria, NICA is expanding its awareness campaign to include all credit matters across industries in the country, adding that, this will go a long way to smoothing the path for transitioning the economy from cash-based to credit system currently being put in place by the federal government.