Student loan information 'should be shared'

Interesting suggestion from internet bank Egg,who have called for debt information from the Student Loan Company to be made available to lenders.

At the core of this are two issues. Firstly, of course, is the fact that lenders want to make a great deal of money and don't really care who from. But educated people who are likely to be able to pay it back are an excellent risk.

The second, and unspoken in this article, is that the SLC is actually a fully-fledged charity, and is therefore bound by certain codes of conduct. The SLC is also keen to be seen to do the right thing, and Egg are probably aware of that.

I'm not quite sure about the statement, "It is in everyone's interest for banks (to) make the best lending decisions and to do this they need to be aware of a customer's existing financial position." since it seems that some parties (ie the banks) benefit rather more than others.

Of course, this information is unlikely to make it to financial institutions just yet, since it's without question that there are profound data protection issues. Which graduates would be delighted that all current existing banks should be fully aware of their debts to the SLC? That is also likely to produce a bit of resistance. Would the knowledge that all of their debt (and repayments - and so income details) would be available to all banks put graduates off taking out student loans?