Azerbaijan, Baku, March 31 / Trend I. Khalilova /
Seven international companies wishing to participate in the bureau as technical partners have appealed to the executive committee of the Azerbaijani first private credit bureau, which is being established in Azerbaijan, IFC project coordinator of the financial infrastructure in Central Asia and Azerbaijan Teymur Eybatov told Trend on Friday.
"These companies have experience in governing the private credit bureaus in Korea, U.S, Italy, etc.," Eybatov said. "They must present their companies in late April - early May."
At present, the date of these companies' visit to Azerbaijan for a meeting with the executive committee of the credit bureau is being specified.
"Meanwhile, we would like to discuss several issues with the whole credit market with participation of international operators during the conference in late April," Eybatov said.
In particular, they will talk about building the credit bureaus, the date of their establishment, the work of the credit bureaus with the state registry, the benefits of the Azerbaijani Central Bank and the microfinance sector. The international operators will hold presentations on each issue at the conference.
This preparatory work is carried out to make a short-list based on a list of potential candidates for participation in the tender for choosing a technical partner after the law on private credit bureau is adopted. An international partner will supply software for bureaus.
Proceeding from its experience, the International Finance Corporation also proposes to give a majority stake in a credit bureau to those who can manage it. This will reduce the risks in the credit bureau's activity, in particular to exclude disputes between banks on certain issues.
Eybatov refused to name the companies wishing to become technical partners of a credit bureau in Azerbaijan as not all applicants provided full information within Request for Information (RFI).
Meanwhile, a list of potential shareholders of the future credit bureau among local banks - Access Bank, AGBank, Azerbaycan Senaye Bankı, Bank Respublika, Demir Bank, Muganbank, PASA Bank, Turan Bank, Yapı Kredit Bank Azerbaijan and UniBank, which are part of the executive committee, has been formed.
In 2005, formation of credit histories of debtors started in Azerbaijan after the establishment of the Central Credit Register Service (CCR) under the Central Bank of Azerbaijan. The register covers the whole spectrum of personal data about banks, non-bank credit institutions, debtors, owners of large stock packages of participation in debtors' capital, their credits and pledges on them. The credit bureau, in turn, will be able to collect credit information from other financial institutions such as leasing companies, organizations involved in micro-crediting, non-financial organizations, including communal and telecommunications companies, trading objects selling goods on credit, etc.
The objective of ACAFI project is the improvement of the infrastructure of Financial Markets in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) and Azerbaijan by creating an effective system of credit information exchange and introduction of training and certification in the field of risk management among employees of financial institutions. The project activities will help financial institutions to take more quick and correct credit decisions and, thus, will increase the availability of financial services to individual consumers as well as small and medium enterprises in the region. This three-year project is being implemented in cooperation with the Government of Switzerland.