Baku, Azerbaiajn, April 4
By Emin Aliyev - Trend:
The negotiations for concluding a contract with a technical partner of the first private credit bureau in Azerbaijan are postponed, Coordinator of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) project on strengthening the financial infrastructure in Central Asia and Azerbaijan Teymur Heybatov told Trend on April 3.
The negotiations on the relevant contract were scheduled for the first quarter of this year.
"The delay is connected with the fact that the executive committee on the bureau establishment needed more time to discuss the proposals submitted by the two candidates who won the tender," Heybatov added.
CRIF (Italy) and Creditinfo (Iceland) were winners of the corresponding tender announced by the executive committee. The applicants submitted both technical and financial parts of their proposals.
The date of launching the negotiations will depend on the progress in the formation of an appropriate legislative framework for the bureau's activity.
"We hope that the bill on "Private credit bureaus" will be delivered for the interagency discussion soon," he said. 'Afterwards, it will be possible to start the negotiations."
The negotiations on the contract conclusion are scheduled for the first quarter of 2014. A technical partner will get a controlling stake (51 percent of the equity) in the bureau.
An international partner will supply the software for the bureau. Proceeding from the 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, organizations involved in micro-crediting, non-financial organizations, 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 NH
Edited by CN