I refer to the letter Ctos gets a dose of its own medicine by Northern Watch. He mentioned that "My wife, a government teacher who had been diligently servicing her car loan, got a shock when she was blacklisted for not paying seven consecutive months when in fact she had settled the full loan with her savings. This only came to light when she went to collect her car registration and the bank officer informed her casually that she had been blacklisted but it was no problem because she had fully settled her loan three years ahead of schedule."

I believe like many people, Northern Watch has experienced occasions where banks, loan agencies or money lenders have conveniently blamed it on the available systems (be it Ctos, CCRIS, BRIS, etc) for blacklisting individuals. This is untrue as these systems do not provide any blacklists. In fact, the so-called blacklistings are done by the institutions themselves.

Ctos is just one of many ways banks have done referential checking prior to approval of loans and credit. For loans however, the main source system would be the Central Credit Reference Information System (CCRIS) maintained by Bank Negara Malaysia. To verify one's credit standings, the person can personally visit the Bank Negara Malaysia's customer service center (better known as BNM-LINK), and this can be done without any cost.

I am not trying to justify the operations of Ctos. They can definitely do better in ensuring their data are up-to-date. But I believe there are certain misinformation about Ctos and 'blacklists' that stands to be corrected.