Article 21 of the Directive 2014/17/EU (the ‘Mortgage Credit Directive’) provides that ‘each Member State shall ensure access for all creditors from all Member States to databases used in that Member State for assessing the creditworthiness of consumers and for the sole purpose of monitoring consumers’ compliance with the credit obligations over the life of the credit agreement’ and ‘the conditions for such access shall be non-discriminatory’ without making any distinctions between cross-border or domestic credits. 

However, recital 20 of the MCD states that ‘in order to ensure a consistent framework for consumers in the area of credit as well as to minimise the administrative burden for creditors and credit intermediaries, the core framework of this Directive should follow the structure of Directive 2008/48/EC where possible […]’ and ‘Similarly, non-discriminatory access for creditors to relevant credit databases should be ensured in order to achieve a level playing field with the provisions laid down in Directive 2008/48/EC".

It is therefore unclear whether access to databases under Article 21 MCD should be interpreted as covering only the origination and monitoring of cross-border credit transactions, or whether it also extends to domestic credit transactions, thus allowing creditors from a Member State other than the one where a credit database is located to access that database in relation to all their mortgage lending activities.