Cap. 204 Art. 24Establishment of Central Credit Register information.

(1) There shall be established a Central Credit Register a

(hereinafter referred to as "Register") at the Bank with non-

anonymised granular information on actual and contingent exposures arising from credit and other facilities granted to natural or legal persons or entities, either resident or non-resident in Malta, to be used for the following purposes:

(a) centralisation of information on credit exposures;

(b) analysis of the stability of the financial system;

(c) implementation of monetary policy;

(d) compilation of statistics; and

(e) facilitating the assessment of credit risk.

(2) The Bank may issue, amend or revoke directives imposing requirements on credit and other institutions , including the Malta Development Bank for the purposes of fulfilling its functions under the Malta Development Bank Act, to provide information in relation to the Register and setting out the conditions for granting access to the information held on the Register. The transfer of information into or from the Register under the conditions laid down by the Bank’s directives shall not be deemed to be a breach of banking secrecy and confidentiality obligations under any other law; provided that institutions and other entities granted access to the information held on the Register shall ensure that the information is protected against misuse and remains secret as if it were information on their own clients.

(3) Borrowers shall have the right to have an extract of the information kept on them on the Register.

(4) Without prejudice to article 41, the Bank may provide access to the information held on the Register:

(a) on the basis of reciprocity arrangements to central banks and other institutions of Member States of the European Union, and to other institutions of the European Union, that create databases comparable to the Register;

(b) to the Listing Authority for the purposes of performing the functions set out in Part III of the Financial Markets Act;

(c) to the Malta Stock Exchange for the purposes of fulfilling its objects;

(d) and to any other institution as the Bank may consider necessary:

Provided that the conditions of access to this information and the confidentiality requirements in the Member State in question meet the criteria as laid down by this Act.

(5) The Bank may impose fees for information provided or access granted to the Register to institutions, persons or other entities.

(6) Notwithstanding the provisions of the Malta Statistics Authority Act, the Bank may require the Director General of the National Statistics Office to pass to it non-financial information in possession of or accessible to the National Statistics Office which is necessary for the Bank in the discharge of its duties in relation to the Register and the National Statistics Office shall comply with such request.

(7) The Bank shall forward extracts of the information non-financial as received under sub-article (6) to authorised officials of credit and other institutions who are required to use this information only for the purpose of sub-article (1) to the extent and at the level of detail necessary for the performance of their duties.