Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 23
By Emin Aliyev -Trend:
The executive committee for the establishment of the first private credit bureau in Azerbaijan decided to grant its technical partner with a controlling stake of 51 per cent of the bureau's share capital, IFC Project Coordinator in Central Asia and Azerbaijan (ACAFI) Teymur Heybatov told Trend on Dec.23.
"The remainder will be distributed among the executive committee," Heybatov said.
The decision was made at a committee meeting held following the presentation of proposals by the two companies that won the tender for the technical partnership in the bureau, Heybatov added.
"Companies CRIF (Italy) and Creditinfo (Iceland) presented the technical part of their proposals and validity of a choice of various solutions, and answered all the committee's questions," Heybatov said.
IFC Project Coordinator said that at the next stage, organising committee representatives are to pay a visit to review solutions proposed by the candidates.
"This is likely to take place on January 26," Heybatov added.
Contract negotiations are scheduled for the first quarter of 2014.
n international partner will supply the software for the bureau. Going by its own 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 and 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, the 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 the financial institutions.
The project's 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 Swiss government.
Translated by M.L.
Edited by S.M.