Habitual defaulters on mobile bill payments had best beware, as they will soon find it not only difficult to get a new number, but even to take a loan if credit ratings agency Cibil's latest initiative fructifies.

The Credit Information Bureau of India (Cibil), which is the largest repository of credit-related information of individual and corporate borrowers in the country, has said it is in talks with leading telcos to use their subscribers' bill payment history.

"I will be meeting the mobile operators in New Delhi by the middle of this month to enlist them as our clients. If our efforts fructify, soon we will be keeping a record of telephone users (landline and post-paid mobile users) in the way we keep the credit records of customers of other clients," Cibil Managing Director Arun Thukral told newsmen here today.

Thukral further said the agency will also aggressively target more urban cooperative banks (UCBs) and non-banking financial services companies (NBFCs), besides insurance and microfinance companies.

Cibil, which maintained credit records of 160 million individuals as of August, 2010, already has over 30 urban cooperative banks as its members and aims to enlist more, he said, adding that it has over 300 clients overall, including banks, financial institutions, NBFCs and housing finance companies. Around 120 NBFCs are already its members.

While its consumer bureau launched in 2004 has 4 million records, its commercial bureau launched in 2006 has 0.7 million records.

On Cibil's recently launched payment gateway, Thukral said it is a huge success, with around 15,000 monthly transactions on average.

On Cibil's future initiatives, he said the agency will soon launch consumer credit scores, which will help lenders assess customers' credit-worthiness before giving loans. The credit score will be arrived at on the basis of over 60 parameters in an individual's banking history.

"The credit score will be launched by the first quarter of next fiscal," Thukral said.

Another initiative is to completely automate its response system for individual customers. Currently, Cibil sends its report in a physical format to an individual by post or courier, which it feels is more time-consuming and less cost- efficient, said Thukral.

Under the automation initiative, the agency will launch an online authentication tool to verify a customer's email id as verified by the bank that is asking for an individual credit report, he said.

The agency plans to automate the entire consumer credit report system by the first quarter next fiscal.

Meanwhile, he said Cibil Mortgage Check, which was launched in September, has been received well by the industry.

However, he admitted that it is not yet time to take a quality call on its efficacy.