Credit Management Professionals across all industries has been charged by the National Institute of Credit Administration, to strictly adhere to the ethics and duty of care while handling customers credit appraisal process.

Prof. Chris Onalo, the Registrar/Chief Executive Officer of NICA noted on Wednesday, that attributes were necessary for a sound credit system.

Credit management body, is solely dedicated to the provision of micro and macro credit management education, award of specialist qualifications, development of skills and capacity building of people involved in the everyday management of trade, financial, consumer and business credits in Nigeria and globally.

He said the plans was to keep credit professionals on their toes by being professional, ethical, and transparent.

“When we talk about being ethical, transparent, and carrying out the duty of care to make sure that credit appraisal processes are transparent, we are looking to keep credit professionals on their toes by being very professional, ethical, and transparent

“This is against the backdrop of credit possibly going bad as a result of unethical conducts, some of which might not be economically motivated, but could be factors that can be prevented,” he said.

Onalo said, when a credit professional is appraising a customer for either a credit line, credit review, or credit limit upgrade, the customer must be thoroughly assessed based on the knowledge of the customer credibility over time.

“This is important so that what the credit professional sees at the end of the day, or at any time, is how the credit customers’ business can continuously be positioned and repositioned for growth, expansion and sustainable contribution to the economy,” Onalo said.

The NICA boss reaffirmed that if a credit professional failed to commit to the ethical and transparent credit appraisal process, “chances are that the credit transaction in question may go bad, and such a credit professional might be in a dilemma of turning that account around, which means bad debt would occur. This means that the end testifies to the beginning”.

He noted that NICA was holding credit professionals to that commitment, “to this end, when credit appraisal is being carried out, appropriate credit and business information must be gathered to build mitigation bridges against defaults”.

“To enable credit managers and their teams to do their job of appraising, controlling, managing, monitoring and recovering, it is important to state that the organisations and individuals who use credit to expand, grow, sustain or start up a business, or buy on credit today and pay tomorrow, must endeavour to live up to their obligations,” he declared.

He warned against abuse of credit and the use of credit as a means to defraud the economy.

Onalo remarked, “The bigger the information you have on the credit customer, the more likelihood you have of the success of that account.”