New Delhi, Aug. 24 -- The Finance Ministry has in two written replies to the Parliament last week, clarified on the requirement for and mandatory nature of CIBIL scores for loan applications, and also outlined whether it plans to replace the organisation in its role, with a government body.

Responding to queries raised on "misuse of CIBIL score by banks" and "the status and recognition of CIBIL score", Union Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Pankaj Choudhary on August 18 informed the Parliament that as a credit information company or CIC, CIBIL is enabled to "provide credit scoring to its specified users or specified users of any other credit information company or to other credit information companies being its members".

The reply no...