On 11th December 2014 the lower chamber of the Paraguayan parliament passed a bill amending Act 1969/02, regulating private information.

This bill regulates the processing of personal data included in archives, registries, data bases or any technical medium containing public or private data intended to issue reports, in order to enforce their holders’ rights.

The bill amends articles 5 and 9 of Act 1969/02, which establish, firstly, in which cases the data on a person’s wealth and commercial and financial obligations can be published (under the necessary condition of express, written authorisation); and secondly, prohibitions against the disclosure or dissemination of such data by companies or organisations providing information on banks’ customers’ wealth, economic solvency and/or compliance with their commercial obligations.

In the first reading in parliament, two significant amendments were put forward to the draft bill. Borrowers with debts of below 50 minimum-wage days and all debts repaid would be eliminated immediately, and no record of the borrower’s late payment would remain.

The final version of the bill only included the amendment regarding immediate exclusion from the data bases for borrowers that settled their debts, regardless of how long they took to do so.

The Chamber of Deputies also approved including positive data on borrowers that are up to date on their payment schedules.

Paraguay’s Central Bank has criticised this bill in the media. It considers that it does not help the financial-inclusion programme defined by the Paraguayan government. Specifically, the PCB predicts that the bill’s provisions will restrict credit and make it more expensive, since lenders will not have sufficient information to evaluate the risk for loan requests.