Baku, Azerbaijan, July 31
By Ilaha Mammadli - Trend:
The list of potential founders of Azerbaijan's first private credit bureau has increased up to 13.
Two non-bank credit institutions (NBCO) - "Finca Azerbaijan" and "AzerCredit" joined the executive committee on the establishment of the bureau, IFC project coordinator for the financial infrastructure strengthening in Central Asia and Azerbaijan (ACAFI) Teymur Heybatov told Trend.
Some 11 banks - "Access Bank", "AGBank", "Azerbaycan Sənaye Bankı", "Bank Respublika", "Dəmir Bank", "Muganbank", PASHA Bank, "Turan Bank", "Yapı Kredit Bank Azerbaijan ", "UniBank" and "Kapital Bank" were the potential founders before their adherence.
Heybatov does not exclude the possibility of other commercial banks joining in the initiative.
"This suggests that the financial sector of the country shows a sufficient interest in the project. The quantity of participants, of course, is not limited, but as you know, technical partner will receive half the equity participation in the capital of the bureau, and the committee would not want to destroy the structure of local shareholders," he added.
The technical partner will obtain a controlling package of shares in the bureau (51 percent of the equity in the capital). The remaining part of the authorized capital will be distributed among the founders of equal shares. It was initially announced that formation of the initial capital of the credit bureau was in the volume of 2 million AZN, where the main part will spent on the acquisition of software.
As Heybatov noted, the contenders for the provision of technical partnership with the bureau are two companies CRIF (Italy) and Creditinfo (Iceland), which have been selected on a tender basis. The applicants submitted both technical and financial part of their proposals, which were submitted to the Central Bank of the country for familiarization.
In parallel with this, the legislative base for the activity of private credit bureau in Azerbaijan is being prepared. "Even in April, the Central Bank of the country sent to the government a package of amendments to the laws on personal data, on banks, on non-bank credit organizations and to the Code of Administrative Offences. The company will be created after formation of the legislation and other organizational measures for the start of the credit bureau`s activity will be carried out," Heybatov said.
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.
Edited by CN