Bank of Israel Credit Data System

The **Bank of Israel Credit Data System** is Israel’s framework for collecting and sharing information about individuals’ credit obligations and repayment conduct. Established under the Credit Data Law, 5776–2016, it comprises a central register operated by the Bank of Israel and a regulated process through which credit bureaus provide information to authorized users, subject to applicable consent requirements.^[1][2] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/bank-of-israel/about-the-bank-of-israel/the-bank-of-israels-functions/management-of-the-credit-data-register-and-supervision-and-regulation-of-the-credit-data-sharing-system/))

Purpose and legal basis

The Credit Data Law directed the Bank of Israel to establish a national credit-data register and oversee participants in the information-sharing system. Its stated objectives include increasing competition in the retail credit market, expanding access to credit, reducing discrimination and economic gaps in credit provision, and creating an anonymized information base for the Bank of Israel’s functions. These are statutory objectives, rather than guarantees that every borrower will obtain credit or receive a lower interest rate.^[1][3] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/bank-of-israel/about-the-bank-of-israel/the-bank-of-israels-functions/management-of-the-credit-data-register-and-supervision-and-regulation-of-the-credit-data-sharing-system/))

The system addresses an information imbalance between a person’s existing lender and a prospective lender. A bank that holds a customer’s current account may already know much about that customer’s borrowing and repayment history. A competing bank or nonbank lender may have less information on which to assess an application. The framework permits relevant credit information to reach authorized lenders through credit bureaus when the customer consents to its transmission. A prospective lender can then consider a record of obligations and repayment alongside its own assessment of the application.^[2][3] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/establishment-of-the-credit-data-system-enters-final-phase/))

Establishment and development

The Bank of Israel began collecting data for the new system on August 31, 2018. Its preparatory announcement said that information from banks and credit-card companies would include records beginning in May 2016, while specified public-sector and Postal Bank data would begin on August 31, 2018. Those dates describe the initial collection periods; they are not the date on which the system became available for ordinary credit-data sharing.^[2] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/establishment-of-the-credit-data-system-enters-final-phase/))

The system began operating in April 2019. A later Bank of Israel account gives **April 12, 2019** as its operational start date. The central register and the wider sharing framework are related but distinct: the Bank of Israel holds the central data resource, while licensed credit bureaus are intermediaries that supply permitted credit-data services. The Bank of Israel also supervises participants rather than acting as every borrower’s lender or making each lender’s credit decision.^[1][4] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/the-bank-of-israel-launches-a-public-information-campaign-via-various-media-to-enhance-the-public-s-awareness-of-the-use-of-the-credit-data-system))

Before the launch, the Bank of Israel described the credit bureaus as central participants in the arrangement. Its licensing materials identified credit ratings, credit reports and customer financial consulting among the uses for which the law provided access to register data. Approval in principle to obtain a licence was a preparatory step, not the same thing as a statement that an applicant had begun operating as a licensed bureau.^[5][6] ([boi.org.il](https://boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/the-bank-of-israel-publishes-a-draft-licensing-policy-for-credit-bureaus-and-business-information-bureaus/))

Data sources and participants

The register gathers information about the credit liabilities of individuals who are Israeli citizens or residents and about how those liabilities are met. Reporting sources include banks, credit-card companies and nonbank credit providers. Public authorities also provide information: the Bank of Israel names the Official Receiver, the Collections and Enforcement Authority, and its own Restricted Accounts Section among the sources. Consequently, the system is broader than a list of bank loans, but it is focused on individuals’ credit information rather than serving as a general register of all financial assets.^[1] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/bank-of-israel/about-the-bank-of-israel/the-bank-of-israels-functions/management-of-the-credit-data-register-and-supervision-and-regulation-of-the-credit-data-sharing-system/))

Several roles should be distinguished. **Information sources** report data to the register. **Credit bureaus** obtain data for uses permitted by law and provide services such as reports or ratings. **Credit-data users**, including eligible lenders, may use information in assessing credit. The Bank of Israel’s Supervisor of Credit Data Sharing regulates participants that also include paid representatives and business information bureaus. This division of responsibilities matters because the organization reporting an item, the bureau preparing a rating, and the lender deciding whether to extend credit need not be the same organization.^[1][5] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/bank-of-israel/about-the-bank-of-israel/the-bank-of-israels-functions/management-of-the-credit-data-register-and-supervision-and-regulation-of-the-credit-data-sharing-system/))

In its April 2023 review, the Bank of Israel identified D&B Credit Data Company Ltd. and BDI-Coface Ltd. as credit bureaus operating under its licence and supervision at that time. The same review reported 44 credit providers using database information, compared with 28 in April 2019. Those figures are dated measures of participation, not an assertion about the number of users or licensed bureaus at any later date.^[3] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/four-years-of-activity-for-the-credit-data-sharing-system/))

How information is used

The Bank of Israel described a process in which data reported by lenders and authorities are conveyed through credit bureaus to authorized credit providers and to customers. Its explanation states that transmission to a credit provider requires the customer’s consent, generally when the customer seeks a loan. Consent to a lender receiving a report is therefore a different matter from the routine reporting of information into the central register.^[2] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/establishment-of-the-credit-data-system-enters-final-phase/))

A credit report presents information for a permitted purpose; a credit rating is an assessment produced using data. The Bank of Israel’s description of bureau licensing treats these as different services. The presence of a rating should not be confused with a loan approval, and the central register should not be described as assigning a single lending decision on behalf of every provider. Credit providers use the data in their own decisions. The Bank of Israel has also noted that decisions to provide credit are not based solely on Credit Data System information.^[5][7] ([boi.org.il](https://boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/the-bank-of-israel-publishes-a-draft-licensing-policy-for-credit-bureaus-and-business-information-bureaus/))

The availability of a shared repayment record can enable a lender without a longstanding relationship with a borrower to assess that borrower using information beyond its own files. According to the Bank of Israel, broader access to such information can reduce the informational advantage of larger incumbent lenders. It has also stated that reliable information about repayment conduct can lessen reliance on nonfinancial personal or demographic information that could give rise to prohibited discrimination. These are descriptions of the system’s intended mechanisms; they do not establish that all lending disparities have been eliminated.^[3] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/four-years-of-activity-for-the-credit-data-sharing-system/))

Customer access and correction

The Bank of Israel stated during implementation that a customer could obtain, independently and once a year without charge, a report detailing information gathered about them in the system. It also described a legal route for customers to transmit information to entities providing advice about credit-related financial management, subject to the law’s conditions. A customer’s own access to a report is separate from a prospective lender’s receipt of information through a bureau.^[2] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/establishment-of-the-credit-data-system-enters-final-phase/))

Accuracy is important because reported information may be used to evaluate borrowing risk. The Credit Data System’s public contact page says that a person who believes information is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate may request that it be deleted, completed or revised. The page directs users to the correction process in the personal area and states that, at the time described on the page, this process is supported in Hebrew only. It also provides a route to complain about matters concerning the system and its participants.^[8] ([creditdata.org.il](https://www.creditdata.org.il/en/information/contact-us/))

The existence of a correction process does not mean that accurate adverse information can be removed merely because it is unfavorable. Equally, a lender’s assessment should not be treated as proof that every item supplied to it is error-free. The distinction between the underlying record and the bureau’s assessment helps explain why a customer checking their information may need to identify a particular reported item rather than treating a rating as the item to be corrected.^[5][8] ([boi.org.il](https://boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/the-bank-of-israel-publishes-a-draft-licensing-policy-for-credit-bureaus-and-business-information-bureaus/))

Market evidence and limits of interpretation

The Bank of Israel reported that the register held information on about **8 million customers** in its April 2024 five-year review. It said that approximately 80 percent of customers had an excellent or good credit rating, about 10 percent had a reasonable rating, and the remainder had a low or very low rating. Its April 2023 review had reported information on approximately 6.5 million adult customers. These figures come from different reporting dates and should not be presented as simultaneous measurements or as directly comparable counts with identical definitions.^[3][9] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/four-years-of-activity-for-the-credit-data-sharing-system/))

The 2024 review also reported a decline in banks’ share of the market segment it measured, from about 88 percent in January 2020 to about 80 percent in December 2023. Over that period, it reported increases in the shares of nonbank credit companies and credit-card companies. A Bank of Israel Research Department study cited in the review found indications that data sharing helped narrow a measured interest-rate gap between customers with a current account at one bank and those with accounts at multiple banks. The Bank described that particular gap as having closed over the study’s four-and-a-half-year observation period.^[9] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/10-4-2024en/))

These findings require careful interpretation. A change in lenders’ market shares does not, on its own, measure how much of the change was caused by the register. Likewise, closure of a specified interest-rate gap does not mean every borrower pays the same rate or that every difference in credit access has disappeared. The reported study concerns a defined comparison of customers, while the system’s broader goals include competition, access and nondiscrimination across the retail credit market.^[1][9] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/bank-of-israel/about-the-bank-of-israel/the-bank-of-israels-functions/management-of-the-credit-data-register-and-supervision-and-regulation-of-the-credit-data-sharing-system/))

Supervision, exceptional periods and statistical use

Supervision extends beyond licensing. In response to the economic effects of the Swords of Iron war, the Supervisor instructed reporting sources to identify and mark certain negative data so that bureaus and lenders could distinguish information generated after the war began from earlier information. The Bank of Israel has also issued **temporary**, period-specific extensions of the time before certain loan arrears were reported. For example, an instruction announced on March 5, 2026, changed the threshold from 30 to 60 days for monthly reports covering March and April 2026, with possible further extension by the Supervisor. Such measures should not be read as a permanent change to all reporting rules.^[7][10] ([creditdata.org.il](https://www.creditdata.org.il/en/articles/iron-swords/))

The register has a use separate from individual lending decisions. The Bank of Israel manages an anonymized statistical database based on register information for its institutional functions. This statistical use differs from a bureau supplying an identifiable customer’s credit report to a lender. The Bank has also discussed developing a business credit-data register; that proposed corporate scope should not be conflated with the individual-focused system that began operating in 2019.^[1][11][12] ([boi.org.il](https://www.boi.org.il/en/bank-of-israel/about-the-bank-of-israel/the-bank-of-israels-functions/management-of-the-credit-data-register-and-supervision-and-regulation-of-the-credit-data-sharing-system/))