Azerbaijan, Baku, June 13 / Trend E. Aliyev /
The executive committee of the first private credit bureau to be established in Azerbaijan continues working to choose a technical partner, IFC Project Coordinator in Central Asia and Azerbaijan (ACAFI) Teymur Heybatov told Trend today.
"The potential shareholders approved the IFC proposed model," he said. At the current stage, this document has been prepared. It is being discussed by the banks. The next meeting of the Executive Committee is scheduled for July 10. Request for Information (RFI) will be approved there. It will be presented to six companies which offered its services and meet the relevant requirements."
He added that these companies, representing Italy, Turkey, South Korea, Singapore, Spain and Germany, have experience in managing the private credit bureau.
An international partner will supply the software for the bureau. Proceeding from its experience, the International Finance Corporation also proposes to give a majority stake in the credit bureau, to be established in Azerbaijan, to those who know how to manage it. This will reduce the risks in the work of the bureau, in particular, exclude disputes on certain issues between the banks.
Access Bank, AGBank, Azerbaycan Senaye Bankı, Bank Respublika, Demir Bank, Muganbank, PASA Bank, Turan Bank, Yapı Kredit Bank Azerbaijan and UniBank are potential shareholders of the future credit bureau planned to be established in Azerbaijan.
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, organisations involved in micro-crediting, non-financial organisations, including communal and telecommunications companies and trading by selling goods on credit.
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 take quicker and correct credit decisions and thereby 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 with the cooperation of the Government of Switzerland.