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ipumbu shiimi : credit information management in namibia welcoming remarks by mr ipumbu shiimi, governor of the bank of namibia, at the credit information workshop, windhoek, 19 august 2013. * * * director of ceremony mr. darrel beghin, executive director, south african credit providers association ms. mojgan derakhshani and daniel kanyi from finmark trust representatives of credit bureaus, representatives of lending institutions, distinguished invited guests, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen, good morning! i am pleased to be here this morning and thank you for the invitation to open this important workshop on credit information, a topical subject of interest to namibia. allow me therefore, director of ceremony, to extend my gratitude appreciation to finmark trust for this initiative. i am informed that the overarching objective of the workshop is to share the outcome of the fact finding mission to namibia conducted by finmark trust in march this year and also to share the south african experience in credit information management. ladies and gentlemen, this workshop comes at an opportune time for namibia. why do i say that? three reasons come to mind. first, namibia in general and the bank of namibia in particular, are vigorously pursuing a financial inclusion agenda. this is underpinned by the launch of the namibia financial sector strategy in august 2012 by the honourable minister of finance. this strategy represents a long - term development strategy for the namibian financial sector. one of the goals of this strategy is to reduce financial exclusion from baseline of 51. 7 % financial exclusion determined in 2007 to 26 % percent by 2021. the good news is that we have made significant progress in this regard, financial exclusion has fallen since 2007, it now stands at 31 %. but we still have some work to do to achieve the goal of financial inclusion. a good credit information system is a necessity for financial inclusion and this is what i would like to talk about in my remarks today. first, what is the importance of a good credit information system? three reasons : a. research has shown that there is a positive correlation between the credit information system through the presence of credit registries / bureaus in an economy and access to finance. this is because credit information sharing plays a critical role in the financial sector in facilitating access to finance to people who are in need of funding. this is achieved by availing information on borrowers ’ credit worthiness to lenders. this helps lenders with credit assessment, meaning