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About Our Industry
ASIA COUNTRY RISK AND PAYMENT TRENDS
This country risk chart illustrates the relative GDP performance (as expressed by individual bubbles) positioned on the horizontal axis in terms of GDP per Capita. Country Risk Indicators on a scale of 1 (low risk to 7 highest risk) are mapped on the horizontal axis.
Source: Dun & Bradstreet International Risk and Payment Review http://www.dnbcounryrisk.com
BIIA COMPILES COUNTRY RISK DATA FROM VAROUS SOURCES WHICH ARE INDENTIFIED ON THE INDIVIDUAL CHARTS.
BIIA DOES NOT WARRENT ACCURACY OF THE DATA DISPLAYED NOR THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY THE SOURCES.
PLEASE REVIEW LATEST DATA BY CLICKING ON THE ATTACHMENT.
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ASIA-PACIFIC CREDIT COALITION
APCC is comprised of organizations including lenders, credit bureaus, and data analytics firms -- committed to promoting rational consumer credit reporting standards within APEC. APCC is an affiliate organization of the Political and Economic Research Council (PERC), a 501(c)3 non-profit public policy research institution based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For more information about APCC please visit apeccredit.org. For more information about PERC visit http://www.infopolicy.org
Mission statement:
These organizations believe that the responsible use of robust credit history data and other payment information leads to optimal credit risk management. Sound credit risk management in turn increases lending to the private sector, increases economic growth, broadens and deepens credit access, and protects individuals from overextension.
In that credit markets are global and lenders are increasingly global or regional in their focus, it is economically sensible to have in place regional credit reporting standards based upon proven principles.
In that APEC represents the largest, wealthiest, and most dynamic economic region in the world, it is vital not only to the individual APEC member economies but to the global economy that credit risk management based on sophisticated decision sciences become the norm in this region.
The APCC members believe that credit reporting should be based on the following general principles:
1. Both positive and negative credit and payment data should be reported to consumer reporting agencies;
2. Recognizing that the individual is owner of their own credit information, consumer rights and protections are paramount. As such, the OECD Fair Information Principles -- including notice, access, choice, correction, and redress -- should be judiciously applied and shall serve as the foundation of any regional consumer credit reporting standard.
3. A private credit bureau and a public credit registry are complementary to one another and each play distinct and vital roles in a vital financial services system;
4. Reporting of credit and payment data should be done on a voluntary and not mandatory basis;
5. Access to credit and payment data should be universal to all those with a permissible purpose regardless of whether they report the type of firm;
What we do:
APCC's members will work with governments of individual member economies and the institutions of APEC to develop and implement sound consumer credit reporting standards.
* Educational seminars with national regulators and policy makers.
* Outreach to APEC staff
* Press and media briefings
* Country-specific and regional economic impact analyses
* Industry executive briefings and outreach
The Asia-Pacific Credit Coalition is made possible through the participation of our members.
Copyright 2007 Asia-Pacific Credit Coalition. All Rights Reserved.
100 Europa Drive, Suite 403, Chapel Hill, NC 27517
Phone (919) 338-2798
http://www.apeccredit.org/
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ASYMMETRIES IN INFORMATION
Since its foundation BIIA has actively pursued the objective to mobilize the financial community and public institutions to create awareness as to the causes of information asymmetries and to build an effective alliance to combat the causes of information asymmetries. BIIA presented its case at institutions such as UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), IFC (Word Bank Group), the FCIB, and is engaged in discussions with ICISA (International Credit Insurance and Surety Association).
In accordance with its mission to promote and protect the emerging business information industry in Asia, BIIA provides relevant information for users, governments, regulators and academia. BIIA conducts neutral open forums in which its members can debate and resolve common issues with users, regulators, government and the public information sector. BIIA provides industry specific news and commentary (http://www.biia.com) from a local perspective (how Western practices are implemented by Asians in Asian markets). BIIA provides regular feedback to member companies so that they can assess whether particular developments are seen by the entire industry and not just represent a single opinion.
Business information is an essential ingredient in business decisions. BIIA members serve businesses with accurate, reliable and timely information in a wide range of decision processes starting with strategic analysis, profiling and prospecting of potential customers, demand forecasting, sales assignments, credit information, decision systems and scoring, monitoring, and receivable management services. B2B business media members provide important industry insights about specific business activities and markets. BIIA was founded in 2005 in Hong Kong and today has over 30 members.
To participate in industry advocacy contact:
Joachim C Bartels
Managing Director
Business Information Industry Association Asia Pacific - Middle East Ltd.
1101 Wilson House, 19-27 Wyndham Street, Central
Hong Kong
E-Mail: biiainfo@biia.com
Tel: +852 2525 6120
http://www.biia.com
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AUSTRALIA - CREDIT CLIMATE
Australian businesses are operating in uncertain times; the global economic outlook is shaky and the domestic environment has become more volatile as a result. This information is not new; businesses receive daily reminders of the continuing fall-out from the US sub-prime crisis, with news headlines touting the increasing number of disasters and discussing the impacts on business, the global economy and the flow on effects to consumers.
TO READ THE ENTIRE STORY PLEASE CLICK ON THE ATTACHMENT
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AUSTRALIA COUNTRY RISK RATING
Australia continues to be a safe haven for business, maintaining the third highest rating on the Dun & Bradstreet Global Risk Indicator (GRI) while the United States, United Kingdom and Austria have suffered downgrades amidst continued financial market turmoil and global inflationary pressures.
The former number one ranked country on the GRI, Austria, has had its rating downgraded due to increased macroeconomic and political uncertainty. Now at DB1c Austrias rating is on par with Australia.
While ratings for some of the worlds most important economies China, Japan and India remain unchanged these countries are not immune to economic challenges and there are signs that difficulties could lie ahead.
A full media release is attached. For further information contact: Danielle Woods | PR Manager Australia & New Zealand
Dun & Bradstreet Australia | Level 16, 383 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000 |
t +61 2 8270 2926| m +61 417 270 130 | e woodsd@dnb.com.au | w http://www.dnb.com.au
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AUSTRALIA: COUNTRY RISK CHART
BIIA COMPILES COUNTRY RISK DATA FROM VAROUS SOURCES WHICH ARE INDENTIFIED ON THE INDIVIDUAL CHARTS.
BIIA DOES NOT WARRENT ACCURACY OF THE DATA DISPLAYED NOR THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY THE SOURCES.
PLEASE REVIEW LATEST DATA BY CLICKING ON THE ATTACHMENT.
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AUSTRALIAN PAYMENT TRENDS
Australias late payment problem continues with the latest figures in Dun & Bradstreets (D&Bs) quarterly Trade Payments Analysis revealing that on average companies are paying their bills more than three weeks past the due date.
The average payment period across all sectors in the September quarter was 51.6 days.
Big businesses (500+ employees) and public companies are the worst offenders, averaging
56.1 and 55.5 days respectively to pay their debts in the September quarter.
To read the full story, please click on the attachment.
For further information please contact:
Danielle Woods
D&B PR Manager
Dun & Bradstreet Australia
W: +61 2 8270 2926
http://www.dnb.com.au
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AUSTRALIAN PAYMENT TRENDS
Payment habits of foreign-owned companies
negatively impact Australian businesses.
To read the full story click on the attachment
Danielle Woods | PR Manager Australia & New Zealand
Dun & Bradstreet Australia | Level 16, 383 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000 |
t +61 2 8270 2926| m +61 417 270 130 | e woodsd@dnb.com.au | w http://www.dnb.com.au
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BANK INFORMATION AND TRADE CREDIT
The People's Bank of China and the International Finace Corporation (IFC) - World Bank Group held a user group symposium on June 20th - 21st, 2007 in Tianjin, China. Over 300 bankers and credit experts attended the symposium. Over 10 bank, finance and information industry experts presented a range of topics stressing the value of credit information in banking and trade credit transactions.
BIIA presented on the topic: "How Trade Credit Data (Trade Information) can Complement the Bankers' View of Credit History"
To obtain the full presentation please contact: info@biia.com
http://www.ifc.org
http://www.pbc.gov.cn
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BASEL II
A revised Framework and Comprehensive Review (June 2006)
For details please click on the attachment
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BASEL II AND THE SME
Trade credit is the largest source of short-term capital. However, the availability of trade credit hinges on the skills of credit managers, whether extending trade credit to domestic or foreign firms. During the past 10 years credit managers had a number of new risk factors to contend with: Transition risk in Eastern Europe, the Asian Domino Effect, Y2K, and E-commerce risk. Now they have a new one to worry about: Basel II, which seems to be tightening the noose on small and medium size companies (SMEs). The Basel II Accord, initiated by the Bank of International Settlement, has the objectives to achieve a direct correlation of the true nature of risk to capital, the introduction of an independent (from loan officers) rating process, the consistent application of a standardized minimum criteria, the elimination of subjectivity in credit granting and better transparency.
Since this article was published, the Basel II regime was somewhat relaxed in regard to small SMEs, howevers the underlying principles still apply.
http://www.intrepidex.com
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BASEL II: IMPORTANCE OF BUSINESS INFORMATION
BASEL II does not only have an impact on banking, it dictates new standards for information suppliers.
The implications on the b2b information providers are that they must be recognized by regulators as competent and reliable information sources. Consistency in reporting requires rigid standards concerning data elements, sources, definitions, development and documentation of analytics as well as on their regular maintenance.
Nikitas Konstantellos, CEO of ICAP has outlined an approach for b2b information suppliers in how ICAP S.A. becomes a recognized External Credit Assessment Institution (ECAI)
To view his presentation click on the attachment.
Email: nkonstantellos@icap.gr
Source: http://www.icap.gr
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BIIA - MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
Join BIIA today to stay informed. - Join BIIA to help to promote and protect out industry.
For Membership details please click on the attachment.
Contact:
Joachim C Bartels
biiainfo@biia.com
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BIIA CODE OF CONDUCT
BIIA members subscribe to a code of conduct and to high quality standards.
To view the summary click on the attachment
To access the BIIA code of conduct click on the link: http://www.biia.com/code_of_conduct.php
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BIIA FORUM 2008
PLEASE SCOLL DOWN TO VIEW VARIOUS PRESENTATIONS GIVEN DURING THE RECENT BIIA FORUM 2008
The purpose of BIIA User Forums are to provide a neutral platform for information users and information executives to debate future trends in decision processes and the implications on information services.
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BIIA FORUM 2008 - CHINA CREDIT INFORMATION SYSTEMS BUREAU
Ms WANG Xiaolei presented on the China 'Credit Information System Bureau'
To read the entire presentation please click on the attachment
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BIIA FORUM 2008 - SHANGHAI GOVERNMENT INFORMATION DISCLOSURE
Ms QUI Wei, E-Society Division Shanghai Municipal Information Commission presented on 'Government Information Disclosure in the Shanghai Municipality'
Please visit:
http://www.shanghai.gov.cn
http://www.shanghaiit.gov.cn
Webiste of Shanghai Informatization Committee@@@
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BIIA FORUM 2008 - SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM IN LIAONING PROVINCE
Mr. Jiang Jianli
President, Liaoning Provincial Credit Association and Deputy Director, Liaoning Information Center spoke about the 'Social Credit System Construction in Liao Ning Province'
To view the entire presentation please click on the attachment!
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BIIA FORUM 2008 - ALBERT LAI ON INFORMATION IMPERATIVES
Albert Lai of Atradius Credit Insurance N.V in Hong Kong spoke to a group of credit and information professionals during the recent BIIA Forum 2008. He had the following message for the audience:
In the mist of the uncertainties in international trade, trade credit is paramount. Uncertainties generally generate higher demand for credit insurance yet credit risks surge simultaneously. Trade credit grantors with automated business operational business systems require quick decision making processes and administration through Internet and credit insurers must provide around the clock on-line systems, to facilitate the policy administration and risk management services, i.e., application and approval of credit limits back by information. Speed of responses is imminent and automated underwriting process serves the purpose.
Albert Lai summarized the imperatives for information suppliers as follows: Content of status information: qualitative & quantitative. He stressed the need for greater transparency versus the tendency to protect privacy and the need for financial insight on the buyer. Speed of service and accuracy of report was essential and the provision of positive and negative performance indicators on the buyer. Automated decision systems require automated data delivery and integration. Cost efficiency is a key factor.
http://global.atradius.com/
For full details click on the presentation below!
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BIIA FORUM 2008 - BIIA INFORMS USERS
There are five key success factors that drive the availability, accuracy, reliability and timeliness of credit information:
The availability of reliable and timely public sector information (PSI)
Mandatory disclosure and compliance
A legal framework for data sharing
Bank secrecy laws that permit the sharing of loan performance data
Voluntary disclosure
In many countries these key success factors are deficient and are the direct cause of information asymmetries.
Furthermore all of these factors are outside the control of information companies; hence there is a need for users, regulators, governments and information executive to jointly work on these issues to eliminate asymmetries in information.
BIIA is committed to work with associations representing users, with institutions such as the IFC (International Finance Corporation), UNCTAD (United Nations Committee on Trade and Development), with local regulators and governments to work on solutions to eliminate asymmetries in information and to improve transparency in credit and investment transactions.
BIIA informed users at the recent BIIA Credit Management & Information Forum 2008 about the current State of Information and discussed the need for action. The representative of the IFC spoke about the current efforts of the IFC to build and effective financial services infrastructure that is supported by private sector credit bureaus.
Industry executives and professionals representing the users of information are encouraged to work on the BIIA committee.
For more information contact: info@biia.com
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BIIA FORUM 2008 - BROOK ZHANG ON CHINESE COMPANY RISK
Brook Zhang, CEO of Sinotrust International Information & Consulting (Beijing) Co., Ltd. provided his 'Outlook of Credit Risks of Chinese Companies'
http://www.sinotrust.cn
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BIIA FORUM 2008 - CHINA'S SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM
YAO Guanghai spoke at the BIIA Forum 2008 about the 'Development and Difficulties in Building Chinas Social Credit System'
To view the entire presentation please click on the attachment
January 23th, 2008
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BIIA FORUM 2008 - DR. BELCSAK ON SUBPRIME CRISIS
Dr. Hans Belcsak, President of Rundt Associates, New York, USA (country risk specialists), provided a brilliant synopsis of the origings of the subprime crisis and stated that the financial services sector is still hemorrhaging, with losses of unknown magnitude still in the pipeline. This has created a crisis of confidence and is starting to bite in the trade credit sector in the US and Europe (major export destinations for Asian Exports).
http://www.rundtsintelligence.com/
For details click on the attached presentation!
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BIIA FORUM 2008 - ORGANIZED CRIME, CORRUPTION AND TERRORISM
Dr. Chris Kuehl presented at the BIIA Forum 2008 on the subject:
"Organized Crime, Corruption and Terrorism: Its All About the Money"
Chris Kuehl
Managing Director
Armada Corporate Intelligence
Contact ckuehl@strategic-briefs.com
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BIIA FORUM 2008 - PROF. RANDALL O CHANG
Dr. Randall O. Chang discussed the subject of Basel II and Credit Management at the BIIA Forum 2008 on January 23, 2008 in Hong Kong.
http://www.biia.com
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BIIA FORUM 2008 - PSI ROLE MODEL THAILAND
Thailand has made great progress in developing value added credit information services and solutions thanks to a partnership between the public sector information (PSI) and a private sector information business (BOL)
http://www.bol.co.th/
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BIIA IN ACTION
Elimating Information Asymmetries
Since its foundation BIIA has actively pursued the objective to mobilize the financial community and public institutions to create awareness as to the causes of information asymmetries and to build an effective alliance to combat the causes of information asymmetries. BIIA presented its case at institutions such as UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), IFC (Word Bank Group), the FCIB, and is engaged in discussions with ICISA (International Credit Insurance and Surety Association).
For further information click on the attachment or contact: Joachim C. Bartels
biiainfo@biia.com
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BIIA IN ACTION - MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
To learn more about BIIA please click on the attachment.
For further information contact: biiainfo@biia.com
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BIIA IN ACTION - CONCRETE BENEFITS OF A BIIA MEMBERSHIP
BIIA IN ACTION:
A significant effort is spent on defending industry practices and standards against unreasonable regulatory requirements.
As a consequence of the financial crisis regulators on local as well as international levels once again are taking aim at business information services concerning their role in the crisis and how to make them more effective. BIIA is engaged on local initiatives such as China, and works with international institutions such as the IFC and the World Bank.
As a neutral institution, BIIA represents an industry position and defends information industry practices and standards against unreasonable regulatory requirements. The more industry members participate in this effort the more effective these efforts become.
Click on the attachment to learn more about the concrete benefits of a BIIA membership.
Contact: Joachim C. Bartels
biiainfo@biia.com
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BIIA Management
Joachim C Bartels is the co-founder and managing director of BIIA. He can be reached at: biiainfo@biia.com
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BIIA MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
BIIA was formed in June of 2005 at the initiative of nine Asian information companies and three information consultancy firms.
Today BIIA has 30 members and a growing network of information professionals.
Join a Growing Network of Companies with a Common Interest to Promote and Protect the Business Information Industry. Join a Growing Network of Information Professionals.
Click on the attachment to view the makeup of the BIIA membership.
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BIIA MEMBERSHIP MEETING HONG KONG JANUARY 2008 - WORLOCK I
David Worlock provided an overview of the current state of the information content industry.
To view the presentation please click on the attachment
Source: BIIA member OUTSELL INC http://www.outsellinc.com
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BIIA MEMBERSHIP MEETING HONG KONG JANUARY 2008 - WORLOCK II
David Worlock provided an overview of the current TRENDS IN B2B DATA & INFORMATION CONTENT SERVICES at the Membership Meeting of BIIA on January 23, 2008.
To view the presentation please click on the attachment
Source: BIIA member OUTSELL INC http://www.outsellinc.com
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BOOKS ON CREDIT MANAGEMENT
T3P LIMITED is pleased to announce that the Simplified Chinese language version of Global Credit Management - an Executive Summary is now available.
This book is ideal for Chinese business executives of all types; Chief Executives (CEOs), Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), Treasurers, Credit Managers, Entrepreneurs starting or running their own businesses, and students of business practice preparing to face the tough challenges of business management. It has been designed to provide the essential basic information needed to understand payment risk management in a domestic and international setting, with the addition of a practical tool kit covering the essential aspects.
This book will make an ideal gift for Chinese colleagues, friends and customers; a gift the receiver will use and cherish for many years.
Copies are available from http://www.t3plimited.com/estore.html.
For details please click on the attachment.
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BUSINESS INFORMATION RESOURCES
In business, the only real constant is change. Whether acquiring new customers or finding new opportunities with old ones, a business information resource can make the difference for your company. Consider in the next 60 minutes:
- 246 business telephone numbers will change or be disconnected
- 58 business addresses will change
- 81 directorship (CEO, CFO, etc.) changes will occur
- 41 new businesses will open their doors
Hoover's provides the most comprehensive, timely business intelligence available to give your company the edge it needs in today's marketplace.
Source: Hoover's, Inc.
http://www.hoovers.com
Hoover's, Inc. is a D&B Company
To read more click on the attachment
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BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
With increasing competition and ever more demanding customers, manufacturing is never easy. Use of BI can significantly improve both the performance and power of manufacturing reporting.
MAIA Intelligence is a software product company in Business Intelligence (BI) MIS reporting and analysis space. MAIA Intelligence, a young and innovative company is committed to developing powerful yet affordable and scalable BI solutions, has emerged as a growing entity in the market place. MAIA Intelligences flagship offering 1KEY BI caters to strategic, tactical and operational users requirements across the organization with a self-serve BI tool for dynamic MIS, ad-hoc reporting and complex analysis. With its mission to democratize BI, MAIA has made BI available to masses. Commenced in the year 2006, MAIA Intelligence, has always strived to meet the needs of corporate implementations, application service providers and value-added resellers. MAIAs innovation has revolutionized the way BI can be deployed. With installation & database connectivity happening in 2 working days, organizations are ready to deploy BI from the 3rd day with instant dynamic reports. For further information on MAIA Intelligence and its offerings, visit http://www.maia-intelligence.com
To read the full white paper click on the attachment
Posted July 27, 2009
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BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE - THE CONCEPT AND PURPOSE
BUSINESS CONSULTANT GAIL BUERGER KERR EXPLAINS WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
- If you are an investor or the CEO of a business intelligence company, what do you say when someone asks you what 'business intelligence' is?
- Can you explain this complicated concept and describe how your company qualifies as part of a critical BI solution?
- Are you comfortable explaining why, in 2009, business analytics software is projected by IDC to grow 4% to $25 billion this year alone
LET'S LOOK AT THOSE QUESTIONS ONE AT A TIME!
To get the answer click on the attachment (below)
About the Author:
Trained as a turn-around consultant and as a systems engineer at IBM saving troubled clients, Gail implements methods for problem diagnosis and delivering results that work fast. And her track record proves it. Over the last two years working across the spectrum of the default real estate/mortgage crisis, Gail has created solutions to address the most critical problems.
Recently focusing on short sales solutions for a client, Gail is also working on new data/analytics solutions for the default cycle and improving marketplace effectiveness for default property. The bottom line: this crisis takes ingenuity and purposefully throwing out old assumptions.
Source: Gail Buerger Kerr;
Business Development Partner for Entrepreneurial Companies
Office: 978-425-9243 Cell: 617-835-1627
http://www.gailbuergerkerr.com; See her profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/gailbuergerkerr
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BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE DATA
BIIA Business Information Industry Association members operate in the Middle East, South Asia, South East Asia and Pacific Rim countries and are dedicated to provide the most accurate, reliable and timely credit information. They are working on common standards and abide by a common code of conduct.
Information about our members is published in the library section of BIIA website: http://www.biia.com/ourIndustry.php. Members are also listed in the membership directory of http://www.biia.com/memberDirectory.php.
In essence Trade Credit and Credit Information are intertwined. Trade Credit is the largest source for short term capital. While direct investment provides the start up capital for commercial enterprises, it is Trade Credit that provides a significant part of working capital for an enterprise. Trade Credit is also described as the largest uninsured short term asset of a firm. Granting Trade Credit is not without risks. Credit risk is not a constant. Risk has a tendency to shift over time. To measure and monitor risk one needs accurate, reliable and timely information about buyers of goods and services. Commercial credit information performs a critical function in the process of granting and monitoring Trade Credit.
Countries from the Middle East to the Asia Pacific Rim are developing credit information and business intelligence networks that are making the process of gathering information easier. However, it takes experience to tap into the right network and assess the available information for transparency, limits and applicability. In terms of the effectiveness of information to be used in investment and credit decisions one has to consider the state of information in the respective markets which are under scrutiny.
There are five key factors that drive information availability: Public sector information, mandatory disclosure, regulatory framework, access to bank information and trade information are considered to be the most critical success factors for providing accurate, reliable and timely credit information. All of these factors are outside the control of an information supplier. While decision makers demand uniform decision support and information services across the globe, credit information and rating service levels are still asymmetric due to a fragmented information industry, underdeveloped public sector information, lack of access to bank information and negative attitudes towards mandatory and voluntary disclosure.
One of BIIA's principal objectives is to hold regular Information Forums for its members to be able to network and debate future trends in information needs with users, regulators, government and the public information sector. BIIA and its members are dedicated to work with local public sector institutions, government regulators and users of information on common issues relating to information infrastructure, the improvement in mandatory and voluntary disclosure, acceptance of common standards and best demonstrated practices in the interest of transparency and economic development.
For further information contact: info@bia.com
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BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE IN ASIA
Business intelligence is important during every phase of establishing and maintaining a relationship, especially when that relationship includes a cross-border party and the transaction takes place in another country.
China and India are developing business intelligence networks that are making the process of gathering information easier. However, it takes experience to tap into the right network and assess the available information for transparency, limits and applicability. In terms of the effectiveness of information to be used in investment and credit decisions one has to consider the state of information in the respective markets which are under scrutiny.
There are five key factors that drive information availability: Public sector information, mandatory disclosure, regulatory framework, access to bank information and trade information are considered to be the most critical success factors for providing accurate, reliable and timely credit information. All of these factors are outside the control of an information supplier. While decision makers demand uniform decision support and information services across the globe, credit information and rating service levels are still asymmetric due to a fragmented information industry, underdeveloped public sector information, lack of access to bank information and negative attitudes towards mandatory and voluntary disclosure.
Imperfect information makes imperfect markets, is an often quoted comment by Joseph Stiglitz, the former Chief Economist of the World Bank. Concerning China and India we are faced with the dilemma of Imperfect Information, notwithstanding the advances made in information technology (ICT) and the Internet. This presentation illustrates current conditions concerning business intelligence, investment and credit information, trends and what needs to be done to overcome Imperfect Information.
Presented by Joachim C. Bartels
Chairman
Intrepid Explorers, Inc.
http://www.intrepidex.com
on April 24, 2007
at the 2007 International Business Law Institute of the Minnesota Bar Association - Continuing Legal Education
To read the full story, please click on the attachment
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BUYERS CREDIT RISK EVALUATION TOOLS
Author Vicky Han discusses the use of "Buyer Credit Risk Evaluation Tools" as a basis for entering into open credit transactions: What is a "Risk Evaluation Model" and how to establish a "Risk Evaluation Model"?
The "Risk Evaluation Model" can be defined as a standard scoring system. For evaluating the buyer's credit risk level, the buyer's credit risk-related factors shall be listed one by one and graded and then the scores shall be summarized according to certain rule, so as to calculate the total scores. Finally, the buyer's risk level could be determined as per the total scores. Of course, the "Risk Evaluation Model" is not a principle to be applicable everywhere. Each enterprise shall set up the custom-made "Buyers Scoring System". As establishing a buyer's credit risk evaluation model, four key issues shall be taken into account as outlined in the attached document.
Author Vicky Han is General Sales Manager, Business Information & Consulting Services, Sinotrust International Information & Consulting (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
http://www.sinotrust.cn
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CALL CENTERS
Contact Center companies in technology and customer service continue to be caught in a massive crossfire of demands: Expand Customer Satisfaction, Increase Revenues, Improve Quality. The pressing question that is getting more and more attention is how to meet those and other objectives with a lower cost base and higher profitability. In the Contact Center, the customer ultimately drives the business; the option that should be driving our focus is how can we expand and enhance the relationships with call center current customer base by optimizing outbound calling.
Burton Crapps, CEO of Purlieu Solutions was speaking on Offshore Collection Contact Centers - Back to Offshore Collection Contact Centers Discussions. He provided the following comments"
"On August 20th and 21st, 2008 the 5th Annual Call Center Conference was held in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, with a focus on technology. There were a few hundred persons in attendance with representation and sponsorship by major global technology vendors. I was a guest speaker, with the topic of 'Expanding and Enhancing Customer Relationships through Outbound Calling'.
I was intrigued with the potential for growth in Asia in the Outbound Calling space, as companies and countries start to understand the value of the outbound business. They have had collection agency businesses for the past 15+ years in Asia, however they are only now starting to capitalize on the value of the Outbound Technology available for collection. In each country in Asia, there is significant potential and desire for growth and expansion of the market, and huge potential for profits for Western companies to provide investment, leadership, and technology savvy.
Many of the companies represented at the forum were keen to know who to expand, how to leverage technology in their in-bound contact centers for profit, customer satisfaction, and for growth. It is a great time for companies in the West to expand and leverage their knowledge, capital and leadership to the exponential advance of collection efforts in the Asia market."
Burton Crapps can be reached at Purlieu Solutions, 5885 Cumming Hwy #318, Georgia USA 30518-5765, Tel: +18008446079, Cell: +17703646585, Fax: +17702346009, burton.crapps@purlieusolutions.com
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CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS FOR MORTGAGES - EUROPE
CRIF Decision Solutions has carried out analysis concerning the impacts deriving from the proposed capital requirements changes for mortgages, following the standard approach.
This has given rise to considerable interest in the main Italian newspapers, to the extent that the European Commission itself has officially made it clear that there is an ongoing debate on how to harmonize capital requirements for banks in Europe, but that none of the proposals has yet been formalized.
To read the full analysis click on the attachment.
CRIF IS A MEMBER OF BIIA
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CHINA INFORMATIZATION STRATEGY
China Informatization Strategy and and its Impact on Trade in ICT Goods and ICT Services was presented at the recent UNCTAD Expert Meeting : Using ICT to Achieve Growth and Development
Source: Zhongzhou Li, WTO Lead Expert lizhongzhou@euchinawto.org
http://www.euchinwto.org
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CHINA SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM
Abstract: The social credit system, serving as a framework on which the government, enterprise and consumer credit systems are built, is a fundamental tool of putting in order the chronic chaos in the economic operation as well as a safety guarantee for the introduction of credit transaction and credit instruments in the market. Since it first put forward the concept of social credit system and its design framework in 1999, in the past ten years China has carved out a new path of constructing an effective credit reporting system through which China obtained lots of applicable experience and avoided certain unsuccessful steps experienced by some developing countries and has made a significant progress. The present paper introduces the theoretical pattern of Chinas construction of its social credit system and summarizes nine major achievements of this endeavor. It also makes a brief analysis on trend of social credit system construction that is regarded now as a national policy in China and highlights a number of aspects where more efforts are required for this purpose.
Lin Junyue is Vice Chairman, the Academic Committee of China Marketing Association and the Chairman of its branch of Market Credit Academic council; Chairman of the Academic Committee of Credit Management Professionals, Occupation Skill Testing Authority, Ministry of Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of China
BIIA thanks Lin Junyue for his great contribution to the BIIA Industry Library
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CHINA: B2B ONLINE MEDIA 2008
JOACHIM C BARTELS presented at the SIIA Global Information Industry Summit 2008 in London about the Regulatory, Economic, Socio-cultural & Technology Factors Impacting Content Businesses in China
To access the presentation click on the attachment
http://WWW.INTREPIDEX.COM
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CHINA: THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
BIIA is not responsible for the use which might be made of the information contained in the attachment. Nothing in the attachment implies or expresses a warranty of any kind.
Sources: BIIA research, IFC - World Bank Group, The Economist, D&B International Risk & Payment Review
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CHINESE LANGUAGE BOOKS ON CREDIT MANGEMENT
T3P LIMITED is pleased to announce that the Simplified Chinese language version of Global Credit Management - an Executive Summary is now available.
This book is ideal for Chinese business executives of all types; Chief Executives (CEOs), Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), Treasurers, Credit Managers, Entrepreneurs starting or running their own businesses, and students of business practice preparing to face the tough challenges of business management. It has been designed to provide the essential basic information needed to understand payment risk management in a domestic and international setting, with the addition of a practical tool kit covering the essential aspects.
This book will make an ideal gift for Chinese colleagues, friends and customers; a gift the receiver will use and cherish for many years.
Copies are available from http://www.t3plimited.com/estore.html.
For further details please click on the attachment.
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COLLECTION STRATEGIES
Rising delinquency rates in many markets around the globe have lenders considering whether they ought to be taking action sooner to reduce write-offs and collections expense.
The white paper from FICO (http://www.fico.com) presents a more precisely timed and targeted approach.
To read the full story click on the attachment.
FICO IS A MEMBER OF BIIA
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT
Trade or B2B Credit is the selling of a product or service based on payment at some later date. As Commercial Lenders cut back on lending to businesses more companies are extending more credit than ever to business customers.
Money is a medium of exchange with an established value that is accepted in return for goods and services. The dominant form of money is currency which is issued, controlled and limited by governments. An alternative to money is B2B (commercial) credit and no government printing presses or controls are required.
Credit allows for the value of a product or service to be assessed and for profitable sales to happen based on payment at some later date. Credit is an intermediary used in trade to avoid the inconvenience and inefficiencies of a pure barter system.
Credit terms, i.e. IOUs, like money are a medium of exchange.
Safeguards so as to protect the value of credit extended must exist just as governments must safeguard the value of the money they print and while the supply of money is limited by how much of it governments print, credit is virtually unlimited; in fact the more of it that is created/extended the greater is the demand for products and services . Safeguards are the combination of the use of commercial credit information and professional credit management.
Credit, properly understood and managed, allows for the expanded movement of products and services and for economic growth and prosperity . Credit is a lubricant of commerce and greases the wheels of business.
Fear of loss and focus on risk management due to a lack of knowledge on the full profit potential from credit and on how to properly manage this unlimited medium of exchange creates bottlenecks, i.e inefficiencies that hinder the fruitful expansion of trade.
ABE WALKINGBEAR SANCHEZ
FOUNDING MEMBER AT PCCM
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT INFORMATION
Credit managers rely heavily upon external data sources to guide them in the credit decision process. To approve or reject a loan request is a delicate task. A credit manager must evaluate the risk associated with extending credit versus declining an applicant based on numerous factors.
All the while, he or she is driven by the desire to generate revenue for the company. This White Paper explores the credit evaluation process, particularly as it relates to small businesses.
This White Paper "Small-business owners and credit evaluation" was provided courtesy of Experian
http://www.experian.com
Experian 2003
All rights reserved
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT INFORMATION
BIIA supported the World Bank in a survey of commercial credit information, which was conducted during the period of the fall of 2005 and spring of 2006. Sixtyseven firms from fiftyone countries have responded to the survey.
The purpose of the study was to:
- Provide an overall picture of business credit information development worldwide
- Capture the characteristics of business credit information business, particularly the difference compared to private credit bureaus
- Describe the business environment from the legal and regulatory perspective
- Examine availability and reliability of public sector information and the relationship with private sector credit information
The 2005/06 survey exposed significant deficiencies in public sector information. The deficiencies are quite severe and impact negatively the production of accurate, reliable and timely credit information.
Imperfect information creates imperfect markets through subjective credit risk assessment. The ultimate result will be retarded economic development.
It is the imperative of the information industry to rally under the flag of its industry association, seek allies amongst important global institutions such as the World Bank Group, UNCTAD and similar economic bodies to bring about a change in attitudes and the efficient performance of public sector information.
BIIA October 2006
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT INFORMATION - CURRENT STATE AND ISSUES
Trade Credit is the largest source for short term capital. While direct investment provides the start up capital for commercial enterprises, it is Trade Credit that provides a significant part of working capital for an enterprise. Trade Credit is also described as the largest uninsured short term asset of a firm. Granting Trade Credit is not without risks. Credit risk is not a constant. Risk has a tendency to shift over time. To measure and monitor risk one needs accurate, reliable and timely information about buyers of goods and services. Commercial credit information performs a critical function in the process of granting and monitoring Trade Credit. In essence Trade Credit and Credit Information are intertwined.
The attached presentation illustrates the current size of the industry and its position within the larger scope of information services. It also illustrates concepts of information pooling, the relationship with external data sources and current state of development and key issues. .
Courtesy Intrepid Explorers, Inc., a founder member of BIIA; http://www.intrepidex.com
November 23, 2008
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT INFORMATION - HISTORY AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
Commercial Credit Information is an important element in providing TRADE CREDIT, which is the largest source for short term capital.
This presentation was presented at the IFC Global Credit Bureau Program; Semi-Annual Practice Group on March 30th31st, 2009; Cairo, Egypt.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT JOACHIM C BARTELS AT BIIA biiainfo@biia.com
http://www.biia.com
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT INFORMATION - MANAGING CREDIT RISK
How do best-in-class credit risk managemenT teams minimize the impact of changing economic environments and help their organizations not only survive unscathed, but maintain and improve profitability? By leveraging their extensive knowledge of their customers and applying it to every stage of the customer lifecycle.
Key to any difficult risk situation is the ability to integrate external and internal information and to apply state of the art decision systems.
Authors:
William F. Balduino
Leader Risk Management Practices, D&B
David M. Earickson
Leader Risk Management Applications, D&B
BIIA appreciates the contribution of this White Paper by its FULL MEMBER The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT INFORMATION - REGULATIONS
BIIA conducted a survey on regulatory frameworks for commercial credit information in key countries and found that there no regulatory restrictions on commercial credit information.
The industry is largely self-regulating, the market has a strong influence on performace standards and quality.
BIIA members subscribe to a code of conduct and to high quality standards.
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT INFORMATION - REGULATIONS KEY COUNTRIES
BIIA conducted a survey on regulatory frameworks for commercial credit information in key countries and found that there no regulatory restrictions on commercial credit information. The survey encompassed key regulatory aspects, such as licensing, data protection, data security, right of consent, permissive purpose, data quality etc.
The industry is largely self-regulating; the market has a strong influence on performance standards and quality. BIIA members subscribe to a code of conduct and to high quality standards.
The attachment outlines regulatory frameworks in three countries, the USA, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong, which have long-established consumer and commercial credit reporting industries, the commercial credit reporting industry is only regulated to the extent that it deals with personal information that is otherwise subject to data protection laws. Stand-alone regulatory schemes do not exist.
For details click on the attachment
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT INFORMATION - SCORING
BIIA INFORMS USERS OF INFORMATION
The focus here is on broadly applicable scoring systems used to evaluate credit risk in small and medium-sized business enterprises (SME). Depending on the way in which the scores are to be used, there are many different types of scores that can be developed and applied. Some are quite generic and can be applied to a variety of situations while others are very tightly focused on specific markets or even on individual credit grantors. There are two principal types of broadly applicable business credit scores:
Delinquency Scores: predicting the likelihood that a firm will become severely delinquent in paying its bills (usually within the next 12 months)
Failure or Default Scores: predicting the likelihood that a firm will declare bankruptcy (obtain legal relief from creditors) or cease operations with loss to creditors (usually within 12 to 24 months)
In practice, whether one is trying to predict delinquency or default, the type of information used in either type of score is very similar. The statistical techniques used to develop the scores will, of course, assign different weights to the individual data elements but the list of elements will be very similar for both types of scores.
To read the full White Paper click on the attachment
COURTESY DR. DAVID T. KRESGE, EMERSON GLOBAL CONSULTING, LLC
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT INFORMATION AND CREDIT INSURANCE
Martin Jones spoke at the second BIIA Business Information Industry Forum 2006 in Tiajin, China on October 25th, 2006. He had the following advice for information executives:
"Information Companies need to create tools that act off their wealth of readily available information. They have to create information systems that not only give their clients access to huge amounts of data, but also add intelligence to credit processes".
To read the entire presentation, please click on the attachement.
http://www.atradius.com
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT INFORMATION A HISTORIC & GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
Relatively little has been written on the development of credit information since it is in essence an age old concept and component of assessing risk in trading with others.
The attached presentation illustrates some of the factors which lead to the development of credit reporting providing the foundation of todays modern credit information solutions.
Courtesy Intrepid Explorers, Inc., a founder member of BIIA
http://www.intrepidex.com
11/23/2008
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT REPORTING - DATA SOURCES
The Right Credit Report: Using the Best Data Sources for Your Company!
Alex Cot describes where to start, choosing the appropriate data source for your decision and putting it all together in an automated Multi-Bureau Process.
http://www.coface.com
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT REPORTING - DATA STANDARDS
The attached document describes the type of data elements used in a commercial credit report.
The attached example exemplifies data elements used in a comprehensive credit report. Within this context it should be noted that the availability of information on corporations, private companies, medium and small enterprises varies depending on the size of the company, mandatory and voluntary disclosure.
http://www.biia.com
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT REPORTING - LEGAL FRAMEWORKS
BIIA conducted a survey on regulatory frameworks for commercial credit information in key countries and found that there no regulatory restrictions on commercial credit information.
The industry is largely self-regulating, the market has a strong influence on performace standards and quality.
BIIA members subscribe to a code of conduct and to high quality standards.
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT REPORTING - PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Commercial credit reporting was re-established in the People's Republic of China in the mid 1990s prompting many questions by business executives, legal experts, and regulators as to its origins, business practices, standards and legal frameworks.
The commercial credit reporting industry in China is now well established based on best demonstrated practices deployed within the global credit environment. To BIIAs knowledge the industry is performing well and there have been no negative developments concerning misuse of data or lack of standards.
The recent financial crisis brought to the forefront the question concerning the role of credit information or credit reporting services in the crisis. Therefore questions were raised whether commercial credit reporting in China should be regulated in support of Chinas Social Credit System. The answer to that question is NO, because commercial credit reporting was not involved in the sub-prime credit crisis.
Current standards are well established and subject to market forces, i.e. driven by the needs of trade credit professionals, a competitive environment and technological developments in data management and decision systems. A special regulatory framework is therefore not necessary. Any regulation of the commercial credit reporting sector would be unprecedented.
BIIA's experts provided answers to related questions based on best demonstrated practices and the current global regulatory environment.
To read the commentary click on the attachment.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT http://WWW.BIIA.COM OR WRITE TO biiainfo@biia.com
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT REPORTING REGULATIONS IN CHINA
Although the history of commercial credit reporting is relatively short in China, existing PRC laws and regulations are already effectively regulating commercial credit reporting companies and are protecting general commercial companies from potential overreaching by commercial credit reporting companies.
To read BIIA's position click on the attachment.
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT REPORTING STANDARDS
The D-U-N-S Number is a unique company identifier developed b the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation.
A D-U-N-S Number is a unique means of identifying and tracking a business globally through all phases of its life, including bankruptcy. It's an industry standard for data numbering systems endorsed by many industry associations.
Quality assurance of the D&B D-U-N-S Number ensures validation and protection against duplication.
The D-U-N-S number opens new areas of opportunity for a business by:
- Helping to verify that a business exists
- Clarifying existing data, identifying duplication and showing related businesses
- Allowing to easily manage large groups of customers or prospects when appended to in-house information
- Enabling fast and easy data updates from D&B when appended to in-house information
- Providing a complete view of prospects and customers by placing businesses, where applicable, within their domestic and global corporate "families"
D&B is a Member of BIIA
http://www.dnb.com
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT REPORTING STANDARDS WHITE PAPER
The purpose of the attached White Paper on Commercial Credit Reporting is to outline current standards in commercial credit reporting and to make the case for continued self-regulation.
Commercial credit reporting standards have been developed over decades in response to technological developments and market requirements to assess commercial trade credit, bank loans and trade finance. Continuous improvements in information quality as well as the development of new and better products manifest the vitality of the companies that compete in the commercial credit reporting industry.
Commercial credit reporting serves a vital function in the extension of trade credit, which is the largest source of short-term capital for businesses. While direct investment provides the start-up capital for businesses, trade credit provides a significant part of the working capital for those businesses. When a business is extended trade credit by a supplier, that supplier essentially becomes a short-term lender to that business. The business uses that short-term loan to make payroll, buy other products and services and otherwise invest in the business. Looked at this way, trade credit is often the largest uninsured short-term asset of a business.
But granting trade credit can be filled with risks, particularly when dealing with new customers or in uncertain times. Trade credit grantors need accurate, reliable and timely information to make informed decisions whether to extend trade credit and, if so, how much credit to extend and for how long. Commercial credit reporting companies perform a critical function in the process. Commercial credit reporting companies gather information about the creditworthiness of businesses and provide it to trade credit grantors to help them make credit decisions. Trade credit and commercial credit information are intertwined: Without commercial credit information, trade creditors would make decisions largely on a subjective rather than an objective basis. This would lead to less credit extension and higher default rates, both of which would lead to economic losses and stifle growth, for the trade credit grantor in particular, and the economy as a whole.
The White Paper on Commercial Credit Reporting also outlines the differences between Commercial Credit Reporting and Consumer Credit Reporting. Commercial credit reporting is different from consumer credit reporting, in at least the following ways:
- Commercial reporting companies do not collect sensitive personal information about individuals.
- The size of commercial transactions and their attendant risks are significantly larger than in the consumer arena.
- The information required to assess the risk of commercial transactions generally includes significantly more payment performance and financial data than in the consumer context.
- In the consumer reporting world, individual privacy is of concern and there is a legitimate need for regulations to safeguard information about individuals.
Because of these differences, standards that have been developed that apply to consumer bureaus reporting companies to protect individuals should not be extended to commercial credit reporting companies. In fact, the dynamics of the commercial credit reporting industry are such that there is little need for regulation of companies operating in this industry. These businesses are founded for entirely different purposes. They have very different customer bases. The information they gather is different. And how the information is used by customers for each business type is different.
Governments that are interested in protecting individuals from over-reaching by others (including consumer bureaus) do not need to be concerned about protecting businesses from over-reaching by commercial reporting companies. Market forces, coupled with the risk of litigation, compel commercial reporting companies to work hard to ensure that their information is accurate and up-to-date. The expectations of customers and the need for commercial reporting companies to meet those customers needs contribute to an environment that is largely disciplined and self-regulating, and that benefits data subjects, data suppliers and data users alike. Regulations are not needed for commercial reporting companies to act responsibly in this area.
Further, imposing regulations on commercial reporting companies will add to the operating costs of these companies, and they, in turn, will charge higher prices to their customers. Some customers may order less information in light of these higher prices, which will lead to more subjective credit decision-making. Other customers will try to pass along these higher costs to their customers. Both scenarios are unnecessary and undesirable. Commercial reporting companies make up an essential industry that facilitates economic expansion and any regulation that impedes its functioning will undermine the growth of the markets in which they operate.
To read the full White Paper on Commercial Credit Reporting click on the attachment
Examples of commercial credit reports were provided courtesy of D&B, BOL Thailand, D&B Australia, Sinotrust and VedaAdvantage
Other information on commercial credit reporting / information services and commercial credit management can be found in this section of the BIIA Industry Library.
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COMMERCIAL CREDIT RISK MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Author Vicky Han discusses the use of "Buyer Credit Risk Evaluation Tools" as a basis for entering into open credit transactions: What is a "Risk Evaluation Model" and how to establish a "Risk Evaluation Model"?
The "Risk Evaluation Model" can be defined as a standard scoring system. For evaluating the buyer's credit risk level, the buyer's credit risk-related factors shall be listed one by one and graded and then the scores shall be summarized according to certain rule, so as to calculate the total scores. Finally, the buyer's risk level could be determined as per the total scores. Of course, the "Risk Evaluation Model" is not a principle to be applicable everywhere. Each enterprise shall set up the custom-made "Buyers Scoring System". As establishing a buyer's credit risk evaluation model, four key issues shall be taken into account as outlined in the attached document.
Author Vicky Han is General Sales Manager, Business Information & Consulting Services, Sinotrust International Information & Consulting (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
http://www.sinotrust.cn
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COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE
The global financial crisis has triggered a collapse in global trade which executives and professionals have not experienced for some time. To survive in such an environment requires fundamental knowledge of markets and competition. As markets and competitive landscape shift vigilance is of essence, combined with a high degree of professionalism, to be able to recognize important shifts, assess potential impacts and to formulate appropriate responses.
The Competitive Intelligence Foundation published a comprehensive publication with the title: Starting a Competitive Intelligence Function.
This publication takes one to the beginning of the competitive intelligence (CI) process, where one has the first opportunity to define and implement an effective CI function for a company.
The editor tapped the unique knowledge of over 40 skilled practitioners who took the time and effort to share their hard-won experiences for the benefit of this publication.
Contained in the in the 35 chapters are all the aspects of starting a competitive intelligence function, from organizational issues to required resources to internal processes, based on the knowledge gained by those practitioners through their own implementation experiences.
The publication provides a comprehensive introduction to the necessary elements and implementation strategies for creating an effective competitive intelligence function. It includes case studies of the extraordinary efforts made by specific practitioners to increase their companies competitive intelligence operations.
The publication was edited by Kenneth Sawka and Bonnie Hohhof.
To order this publication contact: http://www.scip.org/publications/ProductDetail.cfm?Itemnumber=5543
http://www.scip.org
BIIA information professionals welcome the 3,000 professionals of the SCIP organization to the BIIA network and look forward to a successful mutual relationship according to the maxim: "Data is not information and information is not knowledge."
"Within this context "knowledge" is achieved through the integration of external information solutions with internal information gained through experience in working with clients and business partners and captured consistently over time." Joachim C. Bartels, Managing Director of BIIA
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COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE Conference and Tradeshow Intelligence
The Competitive Intelligence Foundation published a comprehensive publication with the title: Conference and Trade Show Intelligence.
The publication addresses how companies can gain insights on industry trends and competitor positioning through the lens of events such as conferences and trade shows. It describes event environments in terms of the opportunity they provide, the preparation required to maximize these opportunities, and activities to undertake during the meeting and post-meeting analysis, all in support of internal business decisions.
To order this publication contact: http://www.scip.org/publications/ProductDetail.cfm?Itemnumber=2720
http://www.scip.org
BIIA information professionals welcome the 3,000 professionals of the SCIP organization to the BIIA network and look forward to a successful mutual relationship according to the maxim: Data is not information and information is not knowledge. Within this context knowledge is achieved through the integration of external information solutions with internal information gained through experience in working with clients and business partners and captured consistently over time.
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CONSUMER CREDIT BUREAU EGYPT
In August 2005 the Central Bank of Egypt gave its approval for establishing Egypts first Credit Bureau. After initial political wrangling concerning ownership, standards, privacy aspects, regulatory powers, technology partners and product and service strategies, I-Score and Dun & Bradstreet International (D&B) signed a contract appointing D&B as Project and Technology Consultant. D&B will provide I-Score with the technology and know-how of Credit Bureau Application. I-Scores Managing Director Mr. Refaat commented that choosing a technology partner business /operation, knowhow is more important than the system software. The IFC also plays an ongoing important role in providing regulatory and operational guidance to I-Score.
In January 2008 the Central Bank of Egypt awarded the Egyptian Credit Bureau I-Score with the Operational License and the bureau went into operation. Following a trial period of several months I-Scores data repository on consumers has almost doubled to 4.2 million records by February 2009, and SME data repository has also doubled to 43,411 records. Hit rate (inquiry match rate) started out at a modest 39% in July 2008; by February 2009 it has reached 51%.
In its relatively short operational existence I-Score contributed in increasing awareness among lenders in respect of data quality and data management. I-Score has become a catalyst for active credit growth with prudence and confidence by providing a unified and robust borrower database across the lending community.
Given the fact that public and private sectors are now appreciating the benefits of a state of the art credit bureau, following the initial period of wrangling over policy, Mr. Refaat concluded by stating What was that fuss all about?
The IFC reported in its latest Doing Business Report 2009 that in terms of Getting Credit Egypts rank amongst nations has improved remarkably from being ranked 156 in 2007 to a rank of 84 by 2009.
To read the full story click on the attachment
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CONSUMER CREDIT INFORMATION REGULATIONS IN CHINA
Provisional Rules on Management of Individual Credit Information Database
See attachment
Source: http://www.pbc.gov.cn
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CONSUMER CREDIT INFORMATION STANDARDS
APCC is comprised of organizations including lenders, credit bureaus, and data analytics firms -- committed to promoting rational consumer credit reporting standards within APEC. APCC is an affiliate organization of the Political and Economic Research Council (PERC), a 501(c)3 non-profit public policy research institution based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For more information about APCC please visit apeccredit.org. For more information about PERC visit http://www.infopolicy.org
Mission statement:
These organizations believe that the responsible use of robust credit history data and other payment information leads to optimal credit risk management. Sound credit risk management in turn increases lending to the private sector, increases economic growth, broadens and deepens credit access, and protects individuals from overextension.
In that credit markets are global and lenders are increasingly global or regional in their focus, it is economically sensible to have in place regional credit reporting standards based upon proven principles.
In that APEC represents the largest, wealthiest, and most dynamic economic region in the world, it is vital not only to the individual APEC member economies but to the global economy that credit risk management based on sophisticated decision sciences become the norm in this region.
The APCC members believe that credit reporting should be based on the following general principles:
1. Both positive and negative credit and payment data should be reported to consumer reporting agencies;
2. Recognizing that the individual is owner of their own credit information, consumer rights and protections are paramount. As such, the OECD Fair Information Principles -- including notice, access, choice, correction, and redress -- should be judiciously applied and shall serve as the foundation of any regional consumer credit reporting standard.
3. A private credit bureau and a public credit registry are complementary to one another and each play distinct and vital roles in a vital financial services system;
4. Reporting of credit and payment data should be done on a voluntary and not mandatory basis;
5. Access to credit and payment data should be universal to all those with a permissible purpose regardless of whether they report the type of firm;
What we do:
APCC's members will work with governments of individual member economies and the institutions of APEC to develop and implement sound consumer credit reporting standards.
* Educational seminars with national regulators and policy makers.
* Outreach to APEC staff
* Press and media briefings
* Country-specific and regional economic impact analyses
* Industry executive briefings and outreach
The Asia-Pacific Credit Coalition is made possible through the participation of our members.
Copyright 2007 Asia-Pacific Credit Coalition. All Rights Reserved.
100 Europa Drive, Suite 403, Chapel Hill, NC 27517
Phone (919) 338-2798
http://www.apeccredit.org/
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CONSUMER CREDIT REPORTING
The credit reporting industry has long played an integral role in market driven economies. By providing updated consumer information to help credit grantors make fast and accurate decisions for consumer credit transactions, credit reporting agencies help fuel economic growth.
Credit reporting provides significant benefits to the financial system and the economy. Examples of these benefits include:
Allowing consumers with good credit to open and expand credit lines
Providing businesses with reliable data to make sound judgments about credit
Decreasing loan losses and personal bankruptcies by providing crucial information needed for credit grantors to more accurately assess the profile of an individual borrower
Reducing risk-assessment costs by accessing the comprehensive information gathered by the credit bureau more quickly and accurately
Increasing borrower privacy protection by providing a systematic basis for lending without the hassle of lengthy support documentation
Reducing fraud by providing additional information such as invalid addresses and Social Security numbers that allow credit grantors to identify and avoid potentially fraudulent credit applications
Speeding access to data by allowing consumers to make immediate large-scale purchases such as a car
Courtesy of TransUnion
http://www.transunion.com/corporate/aboutUs/contactUs.page
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CONSUMER CREDIT REPORTING - ALTERNATIVE DATA
PERC Releases New to Credit from Alternative Data
(Chapel Hill, NC) New PERC research shows that using alternative data in underwriting does not negatively affect consumer credit scores over time, and does not lead to above average levels of over-extension in the new to credit population. Additionally, PERC research shows that the inclusion of fully reported (timely and late payments) alternative datanon-financial payment obligations such as energy utility, rent, and telephone paymentsin credit files is most likely to help minority and low-income consumers achieve credit scores and obtain access to affordable mainstream credit, a key step in the asset building process.
To read the full story click on the attachment
For more information contact:
Adam Rodman at 919-338-2798 x 803 ~ rodman@infopolicy.org
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CONSUMER CREDIT REPORTING - AUSTRALIA
Individuals on the road to bankruptcy begin to display warning signs 18 months prior to declaring, a Veda Advantage study based around the credit behaviour of more than 30 000 Australians has revealed. According to the study those heading for bankruptcy register 48 times more defaults than non bankrupt people in the six months prior to bankruptcy. Consumers are also five times more likely to apply for a personal loan in the six to twelve month period prior to bankruptcy.
To read the full story please click on the attachment
http://www.vedaadvantage.com
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CONSUMER CREDIT REPORTING - BENEFITS
Consumers in Hong Kong are reaping the benefits of positive credit data sharing according to recently released statistics from TransUnion and numerous financial institutions in the market. The statistics released to the chairman of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) are part of the first assessment of an ongoing program that began three years ago, allowing consumers positive credit data to be shared by credit providers.
http://www.transunion.com
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CONTENT NEWS: EVEN IN TOUGH TIMES THERE ARE WINNERS
Speaking at the ABM/FIPP conference, Terry McGraw noted that over the next five years, the media and entertainment industry is expected to grow more outside the U.S. than within its borders. The largest regional media market will be the grouping of Europe, the Middle East and Africa; partnering with local entities is perhaps the best way to tap into this tremendous global growth. Source: McGraw-Hill; ABM Release
To read the entire speech go to: http://www.biia.com/memberNewsPW.php
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COUNTRY RISK ASSESSMENT: THAILAND 2006
THAILAND MUST PREPARE FOR DOWNTURN LIKE 1997 warned leading Thai economists at a recent seminar Thai Strategies in the Global Trend organized by Triam Udom Suksa School.
In terms of credit risk assessment and credit information, Thailand is a different place today. Lots of progress has been made in lifting tranparency.
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COUNTRY RISK PROFILE AUSTRALIA
BIIA is not responsible for the use which might be made of the information contained in the attachment. Nothing in the attachment implies or expresses a warranty of any kind.
Sources: BIIA research, IFC - World Bank Group, The Economist, D&B International Risk & Payment Review
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COUNTRY RISK PROFILE CHINA
BIIA is not responsible for the use which might be made of the information contained in the attachment. Nothing in the attachment implies or expresses a warranty of any kind.
Sources: BIIA research, IFC - World Bank Group, The Economist, D&B International Risk & Payment Review
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COUNTRY RISK PROFILE INDIA
BIIA is not responsible for the use which might be made of the information contained in the attachment. Nothing in the attachment implies or expresses a warranty of any kind.
Sources: BIIA research, IFC - World Bank Group, The Economist, D&B International Risk & Payment Review
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COUNTRY RISK REVIEW - WORLD MARKETS
International Credit Managers were told on April 20th 2007 at the FCIB International Credit Executives ConferencE that the main risks today are political - not economic.
Dr. Belcsk is President of Rundt & Associates, Inc., headquartered in New York City. Born in Austria and educated for the most part in Innsbruck, he majored in commercial law and political economics and obtained the degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence. He is the publisher of Rundts World Business Intelligence dealing with global, political and economic trends. Rundts World Risk Analysis Program of Country Risk Assessments, and the Financial Executives Country Risk Alert.
To read more, please click on the attachment.
http://www.rundtsintelligence.com
FCIB is an association of executives in Finance, Credit and International Business http://www.fcibglobal.com
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CREDIT - GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
Courtesy of TransUnion - a member of BIIA
http://www.transunion.com
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CREDIT - VALUE OF INFORMATION POOLING
Michael A. Turner, Ph.D.
President
PERC/Information Policy Institute
100 Europa Drive, Suite 431
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
+1 (919) 338-2798 NC Tel
+1 (919) 960-8081 NC Home Office
+1 (212) 629-4557 V-PBX
+1 (919) 265-3466 Mobile
+1 (212) 656-1732 e-Fax
turner@infopolicy.org
http://www.infopolicy.org
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CREDIT - VALUE OF POSITIVE DATA POOLING
THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
This report was provided by TransUnion, a member of BIIA.
http://www.biia.com
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CREDIT - VALUE OF POSITIVE DATA POOLING
PERC hopeS that you find this report provocative and useful. Among the key findings are:
(1) The risk profile of the thin-file population (as measured by credit score distribution) strongly resembles that of the general population;
(2) Reporting alternative (telecoms and utility) data virtually eliminates the phenomenon of unscoreable credit files;
(3) Reporting alternative data seemingly increases access to mainstream credit, as thin-file credit applicants with alternative data tradelines opened new accounts at four times the rate of those thin-file applicants without alternative data tradelines.
(4) The biggest net beneficiaries of reporting alternative data were members of ethnic minority groups, younger borrowers (25 years and under), more mature borrowers (66 years and above), and lower income borrowers ($20,000 per annum income and below).
The study can be obtained by accessing: http://www.infopolicy.org/pdf/alt-data.pd
PERC
Michael A. Turner, Ph.D.
President
PERC/Information Policy Institute
100 Europa Drive, Suite 431
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
+1 (919) 338-2798 NC Tel
+1 (919) 960-8081 NC Home Office
+1 (212) 629-4557 V-PBX
+1 (919) 265-3466 Mobile
+1 (212) 656-1732 e-Fax
turner@infopolicy.org
http://www.infopolicy.org
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CREDIT ASSESSMENT OF SMALL BUSINESSES
Credit managers rely heavily upon external data sources to guide them in the credit decision process. To approve or reject a loan request is a delicate task. A credit manager must evaluate the risk associated with extending credit versus declining an applicant based on numerous factors.
All the while, he or she is driven by the desire to generate revenue for the company. This White Paper explores the credit evaluation process, particularly as it relates to small businesses.
This White Paper "Small-business owners and credit evaluation" was provided courtesy of Experian
http://www.experian.com
Experian 2003
All rights reserved
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CREDIT BUREAU DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA
Credit reporting systems are an essential building block for well-functioning financial markets. Reporting systems provide accurate, reliable, standardized information about potential borrowers, and thereby enable financial institutions to lend more efficiently. Building credit reporting systems is essential to expanding financial access for the poor. Many African countries are working to develop their financial information systems and are changing laws and regulations to support information sharing.
http://www.transunion.com
TransUnion is a member of BIIA
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Credit Bureau Development in Emerging Markets
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CREDIT BUREAU PROGRESS
Credit reporting systems are an essential building block for well-functioning financial markets. Reporting systems provide accurate, reliable, standardized information about potential borrowers, and thereby enable financial institutions to lend more efficiently. Building credit reporting systems is essential to expanding financial access for individuals, SMEs and corporations. Nataliya Mylenko, Program Officer for Financial Infrastructure & Institution Building gave an update on global consumer credit reporting systems at the Regional Credit Bureau Conference in Cape Town, South Africa.
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CREDIT CLIMATE IN EUROPE
Great payment variations across Europe
- Payments traditionally very late in South
Europe and most reliable in Nordic markets
- Persistent payment problems hamper business and economic growth
- Unequal payment terms - unfair competition
- Paid late will pay late
- Companies use late payment as an extra credit
- Governments are the worst late payers
To see the full presentation click on the attachment!
Courtesy of Intrum:
Leif Hallberg
Director of European Public Affairs
INTRUM JUSTITIA AB
l.hallberg@intrum.com
http://www.intrum.com
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CREDIT CRUNCH AND IMPACT ON INFORMATION
PASSWORD, a German publication, which covers the media industry in Germany and Europe, requested an interview with Joachim C. Bartels, Managing Director of BIIA, to comment on the causes and consequences of the credit crunch for business information and the rating services industry.
The interview was published by PASSWORD on December 2, 2008 in Germany.
Attached is the transcript of the interview which outlines the direct questions by the PASSWORD editor-in-chief Dr. Willi Bredemeier and responses by BIIA.
To read the full transcript please click on the attachment.
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CREDIT CRUNCH COMES FULL CIRCLE
In the hunt for culprits of the credit crunch the lack of information, perhaps even imperfect information, and the rating agencies have been unfairly singled out as prime suspects.
What received scant attention is the fact that in the value chain of capital markets there are many players, some of which acted irresponsibly, got paid up front, while the FED (or tax payer) is now picking up the pieces.
To read the full story click on the attachment.
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CREDIT CRUNCH ROUNDUP
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CREDIT CRUNCH TURNS INTO GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS
When the credit crunch became evident in the fall of 2007, yours truly (Joachim C. Bartels) anticipated that it would hit main street sooner of later. The credit crunch was also a key topic in the BIIA Forum 2008 in January of 2008. However by the beginning of 2008 some economists felt the crisis could be contained to the financial services and housing industry.
Nevertheless the crisis lingered on and by September of 2008 the credit crunch developed into a full blown global financial crisis of a magnitude not seen since the great depression. The IMF anticipates a composite* negative GDP growth in 2009 (*Based on GDP of 31 major economies).
Notwithstanding the beginnings of a massive financial bailout, credit is still frozen and consumers have fully entrenched. Most likely there will be subdued Christmas shopping this season.
The information industry, in part has been blamed to some extent for the crisis, in particular the ratings industry. However in the value chain of getting financial instruments to market there are many participants who share blame for the crisis. This presentation (see attachment) illustrates key elements in the value chain and identifies some of the major flaws in creating and rating subprime debt instruments.
November 2008
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CREDIT CRUNCH: UPDATE ON A CRISIS
Dr. Hans Belcsak, president of Rundt Associates, New York and board member of BIIA, spoke at the annual conference of FEBIS (Federation of European Information Services) in Palermo, Italy on September 24th, 2008.
Unless confidence in the financial system is reestablished, main street firms and individuals will suffer. It is not the issue of rescuing Wall Street, it all about establishing order in the global financial system so that it can start lending again to businesses and individuals.
Dr. Belcsak also stated that geopolitical risk is returning since the Russian invasion of Georgia. "Every company is hostage to the country in which it operates", hence transaction risk is once more impacted by political risk.
To view the entire presentation click on the attachment
http://www.rundtsintelligence.com/index.asp
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CREDIT INFORMATION
Summary: The authors analyze how data in public credit registries can be used both to strengthen bank supervision and to improve the quality of credit analysis by financial institutions. Empirical tests using public credit registry (PCR) data were performed in collaboration with the central banks in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.
The results of the empirical tests confirm the value of the data for credit risk evaluation and provide insights regarding its use in supervision, including in calculations of credit risk for capital and provisioning requirements, or as a check on a bank's internal ratings for the Basel II's internal rating-based approach. The authors also define a set of critical design parameters and use the results to comment on appropriate public registry design. Finally, they discuss the relationship between the different objectives of a PCR and how they influence the registry's design.
Source: World Bank
File Type: PDF 37 Pages; Description: WPS3443 File Size: (mb) 2.16
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CREDIT INFORMATION FOR SME APPLICTIONS
Dora Hsu of Joint Credit Information Center (Taiwan) presented at the 6th World Consumer Credit Reporting Conference in Rio de Janeiro on the subject of Blending of Consumer and Commercial Data for SME Use.
To view the presentation, please click on the attachment.
Source: http://www.jcic.org.tw
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CREDIT INFORMATION SOURCES IN ASIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
BIIA Business Information Industry Association members operate in the Middle East, South Asia, South East Asia and Pacific Rim countries and are dedicated to provide the most accurate, reliable and timely credit information. They are working on common standards and abide by a common code of conduct.
Information about our members is published in the library section of BIIA website: http://www.biia.com/ourIndustry.php. Members are also listed in the membership directory of http://www.biia.com/memberDirectory.php.
In essence Trade Credit and Credit Information are intertwined. Trade Credit is the largest source for short term capital. While direct investment provides the start up capital for commercial enterprises, it is Trade Credit that provides a significant part of working capital for an enterprise. Trade Credit is also described as the largest uninsured short term asset of a firm. Granting Trade Credit is not without risks. Credit risk is not a constant. Risk has a tendency to shift over time. To measure and monitor risk one needs accurate, reliable and timely information about buyers of goods and services. Commercial credit information performs a critical function in the process of granting and monitoring Trade Credit.
Countries from the Middle East to the Asia Pacific Rim are developing credit information and business intelligence networks that are making the process of gathering information easier. However, it takes experience to tap into the right network and assess the available information for transparency, limits and applicability. In terms of the effectiveness of information to be used in investment and credit decisions one has to consider the state of information in the respective markets which are under scrutiny.
There are five key factors that drive information availability: Public sector information, mandatory disclosure, regulatory framework, access to bank information and trade information are considered to be the most critical success factors for providing accurate, reliable and timely credit information. All of these factors are outside the control of an information supplier. While decision makers demand uniform decision support and information services across the globe, credit information and rating service levels are still asymmetric due to a fragmented information industry, underdeveloped public sector information, lack of access to bank information and negative attitudes towards mandatory and voluntary disclosure.
One of BIIA's principal objectives is to hold regular Information Forums for its members to be able to network and debate future trends in information needs with users, regulators, government and the public information sector. BIIA and its members are dedicated to work with local public sector institutions, government regulators and users of information on common issues relating to information infrastructure, the improvement in mandatory and voluntary disclosure, acceptance of common standards and best demonstrated practices in the interest of transparency and economic development.
For further information contact: info@bia.com
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CREDIT INSURANCE
Euler Hermes Credit Insurance: http://www.eulerhermes.com
ICISA: Welcome to the International Credit Insurance & Surety Association http://www.icisa.org
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CREDIT INSURANCE AND INFORMATION
Martin Jones spoke at the second BIIA Business Information Industry Forum 2006 in Tiajin, China on October 25th, 2006. He had the following advice for information executives:
"Information Companies need to create tools that act off their wealth of readily available information. They have to create information systems that not only give their clients access to huge amounts of data, but also add intelligence to credit processes".
To read the entire presentation, please click on the attachement.
http://www.atradius.com
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CREDIT INSURANCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Credit Insurance - Availability and Practise within the Middle East
The availability of credit insurance whether from national government or privately
represents a key component in the International Credit Managers product portfolio. This
presentation from a globally recognised specialist in political risk, credit insurance and trade finance consultation will provide a comprehensive update of product availability and
practise in the Region
Presented by Alan Wallace, Joint Managing Director, International Risk Consultants (Europe) Ltd., UK at the 3rd FCIB Credit & Risk Management Conference in Dubai March 19th, 2007
Alan J. Wallace e-mail: allan.wallace@irc-group.eu.com http://www.irc-group.eu.com
http://www.fcibglobal.com
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CREDIT INSURANCE TERMINOLOGY
ICISA (International Credit Insurance and Surety Association) has published a new version of its Catalogue of Credit Insurance Terminology.
For further information contact ICISA:
Saskia Cruz | Communications Manager
International Credit Insurance & Surety Association (ICISA)
T +31 (0)20 625 4115 | F +31 (0)20 528 5176
saskia.cruz@icisa.org | http://www.icisa.org
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CREDIT MANAGEMENT
Organizations Are Missing Out On Billions Of Dollars In Potential Savings Annually Through Inefficient Risk Management Practices
Source: http://www.nacm.org/enews/enews
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CREDIT MANAGEMENT AND CONFUCIAN VALUES
The profession of Credit Risk Management exists as a loyal member of the financial group within a company. The company relies on this group (among others) to enable the orderly and successful conduct of trade, preferably growing trade, in a harmonious way within the local commercial system and economy. Remarkably, the Credit Risk Management task requires strong consideration of the features of orderly conduct set down by Kun-Fu-Tzu some 2500 years ago, an interesting observation offered by Patrick O. Connelly Ph.D. in the attached document.
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CREDIT MANAGEMENT BY CHANDLER
Kevin Chandler is a global credit professional who is in charge of managing credit assessment, credit granting and accounts receivables at Halliburton Energy Services. His team manages 63,000 invoices and US$ 2bn in accounts receivables per annum globally. He recently shared his experiences with a group of credit professionals at a FCIB conference in Rome on February 13th, 2007.
For further information please contact:
Kevin Chandler
Director of Global Credit and Collections
Halliburton Energy Services, Inc.
10200 Bellaire Boulevard
Houston, Texas 77072-5206 USA
Phone: 281/575-3580
Fax: 281/575-4754
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CREDIT MANAGEMENT BY PATRICK O. CONNELLY PH.D.
Trade Credit Risk Management
Fundamentals of the Craft in Theory and Practice
This book incorporates the learning and worldwide experiences drawn from the authors three decades as career executive and educator. The topics evolved from the needs expressed and implied by interaction with customers and colleagues over the years, and those experiences gleaned from direct responsibility for the development and implementation of trade credit and business expansion strategies. Trade Credit Risk Management is also intended to serve a role first, as course resource in support of university undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as certification courses in all disciplines which address subjects of credit, trade credit, risk management, and business development. Additionally, the book represents a continuing reference source for both students and practitioners of the art and science of trade credit risk management.
For details about the content of the book and the author, please click on the attachment.
Patrick O. Connelly
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-4196-6837-4
ISBN-13: 9781419668371
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007903409
For 1-4 additional copies please visit: http://www.booksurge.com
For quantities of 5 or more please contact the author at 727-821-4349
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CREDIT MANAGEMENT BY WELLS
Ron Wells maintains that b2b credit management is a serious game of who controls the cash.
Means, motive and opportunity to pay are the three fundamental ideas a corporate credit manager needs to understand, in order to win the competition with customers for control of the cash!
BarrettWells Credit Research
Tel: +44 7971 099 738
Fax: +44 1483 831 364
Email: ron.wells@barrettwells.com
Website: http://www.barrettwells.com
Resources: http://www.barrettwells.co.uk
Copyright 2007 BarrettWells Credit Research
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CREDIT MANAGEMENT ESSENTIALS IN DIFFICULT TIMES
How do best-in-class credit risk managemenT teams minimize the impact of changing economic environments and help their organizations not only survive unscathed, but maintain and improve profitability? By leveraging their extensive knowledge of their customers and applying it to every stage of the customer lifecycle.
Key to any difficult risk situation is the ability to integrate external and internal information and to apply state of the art decision systems.
Authors:
William F. Balduino
Leader Risk Management Practices, D&B
David M. Earickson
Leader Risk Management Applications, D&B
BIIA appreciates the contribution of this White Paper by its FULL MEMBER The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation
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CREDIT MANAGEMENT IN THE CREDIT CRUNCH
MANAGING RISK IN THE CREDIT CRUNCH
There is no shortage of reporting in the dire state of credit portfolios, but there has been considerably less analysis aimed at helping risk managers do their job and deal with their portfolios credit health. The attached paper from Fair Isaacs risk management experts review general changes in risk performance, and provide answers to the questions:
- Are risk tools working?
- What actions are risk managers taking now?
- What more can risk managers do to improve control on existing exposure?
What tools and techniques should risk managers use when times and customers turn bad.
To read the full story click on the attachment.
http://www.fairisaac.com
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CREDIT PAYMENT REPORTING - JAPAN
Political & Economic Research Council Releases Japan Credit Reporting Study
Chapel Hill, N.C. The Information Policy Institute, an applied studies center of the Political and Economic Research Council (PERC), has released a study examining the economic benefits of a full-file credit reporting system for Japan. A related study examining credit reporting in Latin America will soon be released by PERC.
The report--On the Impact of Credit Payment Reporting on the Financial Sector and Overall Economic Performance in Japancompares the differences in economic performance of the fragmented and incomplete reporting system found in Japan to a more robust one, consisting of complete records covering covering various sectors. A Japanese translation of the key findings was released at the Financial Seminar in December 2006 at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. The project was made possible through a grant from the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ).
The key findings of the study are as follows.
Credit reform dramatically increases private sector lending: Should Japan implement a full-file credit reporting system, assuming a high participation rate, lending to the private sector could increase by as much as 20 percent of GDP.
Full-file credit reporting spurs economic growth: The increased private sector lending from credit reporting reform would boost Japans GDP growth by as much as 0.67 percentage points per annum.
Credit reporting reform a boon for Japanese retail credit market. For a target default rate of 1 percent, an estimated 9.6 million creditworthy Japanese borrowers could be brought into the lending system if a full-file system is adopted.
Credit reporting reform increases loan portfolio performance. By implementing a full-file credit reporting system, Japanese lenders would reduce their default rate by as much as 26 percent.
The study used approximately 1 million actual credit files and a commercial-grade scoring model to simulate the impact of different reporting systems on access to credit and loan performance. The credit files and scoring model were provided by TransUnion.
TransUnion is committed to helping businesses and governments around the world realize the benefits credit information brings to the marketplaces and economies they serve, said Ralph Sorice, president of TransUnion International. It is through important research like this that we are able to tell this story with quantifiable results, breaking down barriers that can lead to financial growth for all parties.
The full report is available at http: http://www.infopolicy.org <http://www.infopolicy.org> .
About PERC:
The Political and Economic Research Council (PERC) is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank devoted to research, public education and outreach on public policy matters. PERCs goal is to educate and engage policy makers, consumers, the financial/economic community and the larger public, in the firm belief that a better-informed public makes better decisions. Areas of expertise include information policy, credit access and the global information economy. PERC is funded by both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations that support PERCs general mission.
For more information, contact:
Michael Turner
919-338-2798
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CREDIT RATING REFORM
The recent global financial crisis has proven beyond doubt that a new course of action is required. Here at Standard & Poors, our business is no exception.
As the worlds leading provider of credit ratings, S&P has experienced a period of intense scrutiny since the credit bubble burst two years ago. While the vast majority of the 32 trillion dollars of securities that S&P rates performed as anticipated, the performance of our ratings in the area of residential mortgage-related securities was a major disappointment. This is something that we at S&P deeply regret. We have learned important lessons from this experience, and we have made changes to our business. Today, S&P is a very different place than it was two years ago.
Deven Sharma, President of S&P explains S&P's commitment to reform. To read his message, click on the attachment.
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CREDIT RATING REFORM AT STANDARD & POOR'S (S&P)
Standard & Poor's has announced 27 Leadership Actions in February which focus on four key areas:
- Analytics
- Governance
- Information
- Education
S&P has updated the market on these actions on April 10, 2008. Response has been positive from regulators, legislators and other policy makers. To read the full story, please click on the attachment.
Source: http://www.mcgraw-hill.com/
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CREDIT RATING REFORM UPDATE BY S&P
TESTIMONY OF VICKIE A. TILLMAN
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
STANDARD & POORS CREDIT RATING SERVICES BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING AND URBAN AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE APRIL 22, 2008
Ms Tillman testified on S&Ps Actions To Enhance the Ratings Process and Promote Confidence
To read the full testimony please click on the attachment.
Source: http://www.standardandpoors.com
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CREDIT RATING REGULATIONS REFORM - 2009
Testimony of Deven Sharma, CEO of Standard & Poor's Before The United States House of Representatives Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises.
Deven Sharma pointed out in his recent testimony that some of the recent proposals to increase oversight of NRSROs are problematic and, in S&Ps view, would bring unintended harm to the markets. These proposals include amendments to the federal securities laws that would treat NRSROs far more harshly than any other defendant in securities fraud lawsuits, and other measures that would interfere with NRSROs analytical independence.
Mr. Sharma addressed several important aspects of how NRSROs performance can be improved: Oversight and Accountability, Conflicts of Interest, Data Quality and Transparency.
To read the full testimony click on the attachment.
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CREDIT RATING REGULATORY UPDATE S&P
Washington D.C. October 22, 2008 In testimony today before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Deven Sharma, President of Standard & Poors (S&P), detailed S&Ps commitment to increasing transparency and restoring investor confidence to the capital markets, the role of S&Ps ratings in evaluating creditworthiness, and lessons learned from recent market events.
To read the entire testimony please click on the attachment
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CREDIT REPORTING - DATA SOURCES
The Right Credit Report: Using the Best Data Sources for Your Company! Alex Cot describes where to start, choosing the appropriate data source for your decision and putting it all together in an automated Multi-Bureau Process.
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CREDIT REPORTING - FULL-FILE
This is a Media Overview/Summary of a presentation by Dr. Michael Turner on:
The Benefits of Wider Participation in Full-File Credit Reporting in Latin America
A healthy financial sector is crucial for economic growth. Economies with larger private financial sectors experience faster expansion, better productivity rates and faster growing capital stock. For many emerging economies, underdeveloped private sector lending is a barrier to growth.
Presented to TransUnion by:
Michael Turner, Ph. D. and Robin Varghese, Ph. D.
Information Policy Institute
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CREDIT REPORTING - LATIN AMERICA
PERC Study Identifies Credit Reporting as Key to Economic Growth in Latin America
Chapel Hill, N.C. The Center for Competitive Credit, part of the Political and Economic Research Council (PERC), has released a white paper and full-length study exploring the economic and social benefits derived from credit reporting processes in Latin America.
The paper, titled Economic Impacts of Payment Reporting Participation in Latin America finds that those countries with a developed lending infrastructureincluding a private credit bureau with most creditors participating in a voluntary comprehensive credit reporting systemoutperformed all other countries in the region in terms of growth in lending to the private sector and overall economic growth.
Lender participation in a comprehensive credit reporting system is a key ingredient in the formula for sustainable economic development, said Dr. Michael A. Turner, president of PERC. In those countries in which most lenders shared positive and negative customer data with a private credit bureau, Turner continued, lending to the private sector was dramatically higher.
Simulations using Colombian credit reports and commercial grade generic scoring models showed that higher lender participation in a private comprehensive credit reporting system increased acceptance rates between 100 and 300 percent for a 7 percent default rate. Similarly, higher lender participation reduced default rates on a combined set of financial and non-financial accounts between 13 and 60 percent for a 50 percent target acceptance rate. The report also concluded that private comprehensive credit reporting systems resulted in fewer lender mistakes, a more equitable distribution of credit, and fewer borrower defaults.
Credit bureaus are key to a well-functioning, modern financial system, says Dr. Robin Varghese, senior fellow at PERC. Both national and international policy makers and financial communities should be interested in this information as they refine their credit reporting and private sector lending capabilities.
TransUnion played an integral part in the study, providing anonymous consumer credit files, credit characteristics and market research throughout the region. Through our valued partnership with PERC, we are demonstrating real economic benefits to both businesses and consumers in the markets we serve, said Maria Olga Rehbein, president, TransUnion Latin America.
The full report is available at http://www.infopolicy.org/publications.htm. Drs. Turner and Varghese are available to further explain their findings and provide key information on other global policy issues.
-----xxxxxxxxxx-----
About PERC: The Political and Economic Research Council is a non-profit, non-partisan organization devoted to research, public education and outreach on public policy matters. PERCs goal is to educate and engage policy makers, consumers, the financial/economic community and the larger public, in the firm belief that a better informed public makes better decisions. Areas of expertise include information policy, credit access and the global information economy. The Council is funded by both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations that support the Institutes general mission and agenda.
For more information, contact:
Patrick Walker
919-338-2798
walker@infopolicy.org
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CREDIT REPORTING - NON-TRADITIONAL DATA
LETTER FROM Dr. Michael A Turner ON THE PROMISE OF NON-FINANCIAL DATA: HOW USING ENERGY UTILITY AND TELECOMS PAYMENT DATA CAN HELP MILLIONS BUILD ASSETS:
As many of you are aware, PERC has been working on the issue of non-traditional data and consumer credit reporting since 2003. This effort, known as the Alternative Data Initiative (ADI) has grown considerably over the years. PERC and its partner the Brookings Institution Urban Markets Initiative recently released a groundbreaking empirical study documenting the impacts upon the American thin-file and no-file population from using energy utility and telecoms data in consumer credit reports.
The PERC/Brookings UMI study found that lower income borrowers, younger and elderly Americans, and members of ethnic minority communities all saw dramatic increases in their access to affordable, mainstream credit. Lenders, similarly, were able to grow their market size without taking on any undue risk.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that this data not only has the potential to reduce the cost of being poor for millions of Americans, and offers a low-cost, market-based solution to financial exclusion that constrains the asset building capacity of an estimated 35 to 54 million Americans, state lawmakers in several states have recently introduced legislation that would prohibit the use of non-traditional data in credit reporting. This would compound matters in the states as four states (CA, NJ, OH, TX) already have some form of statutory prohibition on the onward transfer of energy utility or telecoms customer data to third parties.
Finally, at least one major telecoms firm has discontinued fully reporting customer payment data to the three national credit bureaus (interestingly, they continue to report negative payment data) owing to a strict interpretation of the privacy clause (Section 222) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TA96). TA96 permits reporting to the credit bureaus, but the service provider has suggested the the intent of Congress was only to permit the reporting of negative payment data (delinquencies, defaults, etc.) as that was the prevailing practice at the time.
The justifications for these data restrictions vary across states. In Illinois, for example, the restriction on the use of utility data in credit scoring is an attempt to provide some form of relief from an energy utility rate re-adjustment after a 10 year rate freeze. This was a train-wreck that was a decade-long in coming and state legislators did nothing to avert it. Now that prices have spiked (appropriately, after having been frozen for ten years), lawmakers are scrambling to prevent any further pain and suffering (apart from that which will be experienced each month when the bill arrives).
No one wants to see people caught in hardship. However, the Illinois bill, should it become law, threatens to roll back the gains made by many thousands of Illinois residents who were able to build equity and assets as a direct result of having energy utility payment data fully reported to TransUnion.
For this reason, PERC opposes any legislation that would prohibit the use of energy utility and telecoms payment data in credit files, credit reports or credit scores. PERC calls upon state lawmakers to proactively pass legislation permitting utility companies and telecoms firms to fully report customer payment data to consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) should they be so inclined.
Over the next two yearsPERC, its partners (Brookings UMI, the Center for Financial Services Innovation, and Wallace Enterprises), and its supporters will work with energy utility and telecoms firms to exhort them to report fully to CRAs. They will continue their efforts to educate the lending community as to the potential opportunities tied to the use of non-traditional data in risk assessment, and will engage lawmakers and regulators in the states and in Washington DC in an effort to remove any statutory and regulatory barriers to the reporting of non-traditional data to CRAs.
Michael A. Turner, Ph.D.
President
PERC
100 Europa Drive, Suite 431
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
+1 919 338 - 2798
turner@infopolicy.org
http://www.infopolicy.org
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CREDIT REPORTING AS KEY TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
PERC Study Identifies Credit Reporting as Key to Economic Growth in Latin America
Chapel Hill, N.C. The Center for Competitive Credit, part of the Political and Economic Research Council (PERC), has released a white paper and full-length study exploring the economic and social benefits derived from credit reporting processes in Latin America.
The paper, titled Economic Impacts of Payment Reporting Participation in Latin America finds that those countries with a developed lending infrastructureincluding a private credit bureau with most creditors participating in a voluntary comprehensive credit reporting systemoutperformed all other countries in the region in terms of growth in lending to the private sector and overall economic growth.
Lender participation in a comprehensive credit reporting system is a key ingredient in the formula for sustainable economic development, said Dr. Michael A. Turner, president of PERC. In those countries in which most lenders shared positive and negative customer data with a private credit bureau, Turner continued, lending to the private sector was dramatically higher.
Simulations using Colombian credit reports and commercial grade generic scoring models showed that higher lender participation in a private comprehensive credit reporting system increased acceptance rates between 100 and 300 percent for a 7 percent default rate. Similarly, higher lender participation reduced default rates on a combined set of financial and non-financial accounts between 13 and 60 percent for a 50 percent target acceptance rate. The report also concluded that private comprehensive credit reporting systems resulted in fewer lender mistakes, a more equitable distribution of credit, and fewer borrower defaults.
Credit bureaus are key to a well-functioning, modern financial system, says Dr. Robin Varghese, senior fellow at PERC. Both national and international policy makers and financial communities should be interested in this information as they refine their credit reporting and private sector lending capabilities.
TransUnion played an integral part in the study, providing anonymous consumer credit files, credit characteristics and market research throughout the region. Through our valued partnership with PERC, we are demonstrating real economic benefits to both businesses and consumers in the markets we serve, said Maria Olga Rehbein, president, TransUnion Latin America.
The full report is available at http://www.infopolicy.org/publications.htm. Drs. Turner and Varghese are available to further explain their findings and provide key information on other global policy issues.
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About PERC: The Political and Economic Research Council is a non-profit, non-partisan organization devoted to research, public education and outreach on public policy matters. PERCs goal is to educate and engage policy makers, consumers, the financial/economic community and the larger public, in the firm belief that a better informed public makes better decisions. Areas of expertise include information policy, credit access and the global information economy. The Council is funded by both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations that support the Institutes general mission and agenda.
For more information, contact:
Patrick Walker
919-338-2798
walker@infopolicy.org
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CREDIT REPORTING DISPUTE RESOLUTION
The agencies that enforce the rules and regulations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)including the Federal Trade Commissionhave proposed a series of new rules to promote the accuracy and integrity of information provided to consumer credit reporting agencies (CRAs) and to allow customers to dispute inaccurate information directly with furnishers.
To read the full story click on the attachment
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CREDIT REPORTING STANDARDS
INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS IN THE AREA OF CREDIT REPORTING KEY REFERENCES
The World Bank throught the IFC (International Finance Corporation - World Bank Group) is very active in promoting and providing advisory services in establishing consumer credit information services in emerging markets.
The attached document was provided courtesy of the IFC (World Bank Group)
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CREDIT RISK MANAGEMENT IN GOOD AND ADVERSE TIMES
How do best-in-class credit risk management teams minimize the impact of changing economic environments and help their organizations not only survive unscathed, but
maintain and improve profitability? By leveraging their extensive knowledge of their
customers and applying it to every stage of the customer lifecycle.
A D&B While Paper produced by:
William F. Balduino
Leader Risk Management Practices, D&B
David M. Earickson
Leader Risk Management Applications, D&B
To learn more about how D&B can assist you in implementing a customer lifecycle strategy, please call the authors at 973.921 5500
http://www.dnb.com
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CREDIT RISK MITIGATION
From Turkey to the Yemen, from Egypt to Oman, the Region presents a fascinating challenge in demanding individual and innovative risk mitigation techniques. The attached presentation focuses on the problem solving methodologies in this demanding RISK environment.
This presentation was presented at FCIB's 3rd International Credit & Risk Management Conference in Dubai on March 19th, 2007
ERS Consulting Services Eddy Sumar, MBA, CCE, CICE, CEW
7841 Leucite Avenue Rancho Cucamonga, CA. 91730
909-481-9869
ealberto@aol.com
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CREDIT SCORING
Challenges in todays credit risk management discipline
Presentation by Jan Rowland Ph.D. and Rich Ferrera,CCE of Dun & Bradstreet USA at the FCFP Forum October 12-13, 2006 at Atlantic City, NJ.
For details please click on the attachment.
http://www.dnb.com
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CREDIT SCORING - SIGNAL DETECTION
Signal Detection for Credit Scoring Practitioners - March 2007
The purpose of this paper is to alert credit risk modellers to the relationships between the Theory of Signal Detection and common scorecard development concepts and to provide a toolbox of simple techniques and interpretations. This paper was presented at the Credit Scoring and Credit Control VI conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. Read the full paper.
http://www.vedaadvantage.com
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CREDIT SCORING - WHEN TIMES AND CUSTOMERS TURN BAD
MANAGING RIKS IN THE CREDIT CRUNCH:
There is no shortage of reporting in the dire state of credit portfolios, but there has been considerably less analysis aimed at helping risk managers do their job and deal with their portfolios credit health. The attached paper from Fair Isaacs risk management experts review general changes in risk performance, and provide answers to the questions:
- Are risk tools working?
- What actions are risk managers taking now?
- what more can risk managers do to improve control on existing exposure?
What tools and techniques should risk managers use when times and customers turn bad.
To read the full story click on the attachment.
http://www.fairisaac.com
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CREDIT SCORING AND IMPROVED RISK MANAGEMENT
"In today's economy, we all have to deal with higher risks, greater losses and greater delinquencies," said Vernon Gerety, Ph.D., VGAdvisors, LLC.
"What I've been preaching is consistency in the way that you deal with every client, based on the factors that you face, such as the quality of the customer, the amount of information you have on them and how long your relationship has been."
During the NACM-sponsored teleconference "Credit Scoring and Improved Risk Management," Gerety stressed that credit managers must adopt credit scoring and the philosophies behind it, and apply them company-wide. The mantra being that those with the best risk management strategy win. If there is consistency in how customers are evaluated and the language that is used to describe them, a business is then set on a course for greater success. For example, using a risk-rated system to describe customer creditworthinessa simple A to F scaleis a launching pad for better portfolio management and cross-functional communication.
"What I'm suggesting is that no matter how you underwrite, your business would operate more effectively, from a strategic as well as operational perspective, if you designed a risk rating system to evaluate your customers," said Gerety. "A nice thing about a risk rating is that it's a tool, whether you are using credit scoring or not, that allows you to say, we consider this an 'A' credit and then it becomes part of the vernacular of how you talk about customers throughout your entire organization. It allows you to communicate more effectively with some non-credit type people, specifically sales and senior management."
That allows the credit department to easily explain to senior management and sales why they chose not to extend credit to a particular customer and it validates their efforts. They can report to management that they reduced the number of "F" credits from the company's customer portfolio and increased the number of "As," decreasing risk and the possibility of defaults, while easily quantifying improvement. In terms of credit scoring, there are plenty of companies that provide solutions, including NACM Affiliates, but in reality, credit scoring programs are just an automated extension of a credit manager's decision-making process. It should be viewed as a partner to the credit function.
"Technology is not the solution; technology is the enabler," explained Gerety. "What technology has provided to us is a wealth of data. And our job as credit professionals is to turn data into information. What we do with that information is we make decisions; we use our knowledge and expertise and experience. Credit scoring fits right into that, but what credit scoring does is, instead of a manual perspective, it does it from an automated perspective. And there are some advantages and disadvantages to that."
What technology also provides the credit department is consistency. Scoring utilizes past experiences to statistically predict future events. Statistical models can provide a superior risk tool by picking the most significant predictors of risk from hundreds of possibilities and determining the relevant importance of each predictive variable minus the hours of manual labor it would take a credit manager to conduct the research.
No matter what method companies use to determine the creditworthiness of new clients, Gerety said the most important aspect is keeping an eye on how customers are paying that company. A customer may have a great D&B number and spotless financials, but once they are a client, credit departments need to continually inspect payment behavior. This can be a process of blending not only the internal data that has been collected, but also external data culled from outside sources to get a broader view of that client. If a customer is slow to pay a particular company but is paying everyone else on time, then that customer is either viewing that vendor as inferior or is using that vendor as a bank. It also means that the cash is out there, it just needs to be collected.
"You need to continually refresh your evaluation of your customers based on how you are being paid and going outside to see what changes may have occurred via other data sources," said Gerety. In the current recessionary and emerging post-recessionary period, credit scoring has an important role as an application to trigger early-stage collections and to prioritize collections.
Professionals interested in hearing a replay of Gerety's presentation can contact Tracey Flaesch, NACM Meetings Department, at 410-740-5560 or traceyf@nacm.org .
Matthew Carr, NACM staff writer
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CREDIT SCORING OF COMMERCIAL CREDIT RISK
BIIA INFORMS USERS OF INFORMATION
The focus here is on broadly applicable scoring systems used to evaluate credit risk in small and medium-sized business enterprises (SME). Depending on the way in which the scores are to be used, there are many different types of scores that can be developed and applied. Some are quite generic and can be applied to a variety of situations while others are very tightly focused on specific markets or even on individual credit grantors. There are two principal types of broadly applicable business credit scores:
Delinquency Scores: predicting the likelihood that a firm will become severely delinquent in paying its bills (usually within the next 12 months)
Failure or Default Scores: predicting the likelihood that a firm will declare bankruptcy (obtain legal relief from creditors) or cease operations with loss to creditors (usually within 12 to 24 months)
In practice, whether one is trying to predict delinquency or default, the type of information used in either type of score is very similar. The statistical techniques used to develop the scores will, of course, assign different weights to the individual data elements but the list of elements will be very similar for both types of scores.
To read the full White Paper click on the attachment
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CREDIT: HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?
US credit hunger seems insatiable. Consumer debt has reached an all-time highmore than $2.5 trillion in Q4 2007 according to the Federal Reserve.
Certainly, there are many reasons for this growthamong them, lower interest rates and growing competition among lenders to offer new and different types of credit products.
But while the opportunity for lenders is great, so are the potential pitfallsand not just in increased losses and dissatisfied customers.
Concerns over mortgage subprime have put the issue of consumer debt front-and-center, with the media, legislators and even consumers themselves asking: How much is too much?
This story was provided courtesy BIIA Member Fair Isaac (see attachment).
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D-U-N-S NUMBER
The D-U-N-S Number is a unique company identifier developed b the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation.
A D-U-N-S Number is a unique means of identifying and tracking a business globally through all phases of its life, including bankruptcy. It's an industry standard for data numbering systems endorsed by many industry associations.
Quality assurance of the D&B D-U-N-S Number ensures validation and protection against duplication.
The D-U-N-S number opens new areas of opportunity for a business by:
- Helping to verify that a business exists
- Clarifying existing data, identifying duplication and showing related businesses
- Allowing to easily manage large groups of customers or prospects when appended to in-house information
- Enabling fast and easy data updates from D&B when appended to in-house information
- Providing a complete view of prospects and customers by placing businesses, where applicable, within their domestic and global corporate "families"
D&B is a Member of BIIA
http://www.dnb.com
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DATA PROTECTION FOR DIRECT MARKETING
On Friday, July 3, a 'Black Friday' for German Direct Marketing, the lower house of the German Parliament (Deutscher Bundestag) passed an amendment to the German data protection law that incorporates the recommendations of the Interior Committee of July 1, 2009.
It appears to be a widely held belief that it is likely that the upper house of the German Parliament (Deutscher Bundesrat) will adopt the legislation shortly and that the law would then come into effect on September 1, 2009.
Bottom line for Database Marketing is indeed black as hype over privacy and data protection has overtaken common sense.
To read the analysis of The Prescott Report click on the attachment.
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DEBT COLLECTION PRACTICES
ATRADIUS COLLECTIONS(Amsterdam) has introduced a web-based handbook on debt collection.
Atradius states: "We realize better than anyone else how the diversity and complexity of country specific debt collections procedures, legislation and cultural approaches present a major challenge for companies."
"To support you in selecting the right approach to debt collections in your countries of operations, Atradius Collections has compiled a comprehensive resource bank on international debt collections. All you need to know about: Different stages of amicable settlement, financial regulations around collections, insolvency procedures."
Source: http://www.atradiuscollections.com
Link: http://www.atradiuscollections.com/private/general/international-debt-collection-country-info.html
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DELINQUENCY IN PAYMENTS
Rising delinquency rates in many markets around the globe have lenders considering whether they ought to be taking action sooner to reduce write-offs and collections expense.
The white paper from FICO (http://www.fico.com) presents a more precisely timed and targeted approach.
To read the full story click on the attachment.
FICO IS A MEMBER OF BIIA
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DISCLOSURE AND TRANSPARENCY
Germany is on its way to become a role model for electronic Public Sector Information availability and compliance through new initiatives taken by the Ministry of Justice and the Bundesanzeiger Verlag, publisher of the official Federal Gazette. The focus is on migrating traditional printed content into electronic format deliverable in various forms over the Internet.
Transparency has always taken a back seat in Germany as businesses were notoriously non-compliant in filing balance sheets. This is about to change. The intent of the Justice Ministry to enforce compliance in the filing of financial statements will eventually help to overcome negative attitudes towards disclosure, mandatory and voluntary. Thus the rigorous enforcement of compliance will be a significant step towards greater transparency in Germany.
In the case of Germany the primary sources for public sector information was the print based Federal Gazette and value added information providers had to contact registers, which were dispersed to more than 400 localities. Therefore, the recent initiatives to migrate from print to a centralized system to deliver structured register data is a significant improvement in public sector information availability. Furthermore, the creation of an electronic database of structured financial statements and the ease of integrating such data in end-users systems can be regarded as a major milestone in public sector user friendliness and a significant improvement in transparency. Essentially the BDS is a public sector utility for transporting legal and register information to end-users. It is seeking partnerships to augment public data with value added data. It is also seeking partnerships with resellers, data aggregators and value added information providers.
To read the full story, please click on the attachment
Prepared by BIIA - Business Information Industry Association Asia Pacific Middle East Ltd, Hong Kong as part of its ongoing program to inform users of information, governments, regulators, members and the general public about the value of information in business decisions.
For further information contact Joachim C. Bartels info@biia.com
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E-TRADE AND FINANCE
One of the reasons for weak financial intermediation and the inability of commercial banks to provide short-term trade finance at competitive terms is [a] lack of reliable credit information. Says Rouben Indjikian
Coordinator, E-Finance and Senior Economic Affairs Officer at United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
Source: Trade & Forfaiting Review Volume 9 Issue 7, May 7, 2006 http://www.tfreview.com
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EASY
At the 2006 annual membership meeting of FEBIS (Federation of European Information Service), Coface and Creditreform invited FEBIS members to join their EASY (Enterprise Access System) initiative. Late last year Coface and Creditreform had announced that they had formed a legal entity (EEIG - European Economic Interest Grouping) to jointly develop a unique company identifier. Initially the announcement stated that EASY is to provide a universal company identifier for COFACE and Creditreform so that they can synchronize their country specific company identification numbers. Where necessary the EASY ID number will replace existing national or international ID numbers. Over time EASY is to take on all linkage functions, which its rival the D-U-N-S Number has. Coface and Creditreform are now promoting EASY as unique company identification database and as an open system. FEBIS members have been invited to a meeting in March of 2007 to discuss details of the enlarged cooperation, which will address data contribution, standards and license / user fees. Other institutions from the public sector information, such as EBR (European Business Register) are expected to get involved.
For further information contact Creditreform Germany: D.Suedhofen@Verband.Creditreform.de
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EASYNUMBER
RECENT EVENTS: Creditreform (A BIIA ASSOCIATE MEMBER)and Coface present the Easy-Number to partners from around the world in a June 2007 meeting in Brussels, Belgium.
OCTOBER 2008: VEDA ADVANTAGE (A BIIA FULL MEMBER) JOINTS EASY NUMBER (Scroll down for further news).
MARCH 2009: Exalead, European leader of search solutions and information access software in the enterprise and on the web, announced in March 2009 that Coface, ranked #2 in Credit Management Services (enterprise information and debt management), has selected Exalead CloudView as an information access platform to launch EasyNumber, its new on-line search and business identification service. Scroll down to read the latest developments
Announcements: Creditreform and Coface are respectively No. 1 and No. 2 in the European Credit Management services sector (company information and receivables management), have presented the EasyNumber, a universal identifier for searching and identifying companies throughout the world.
EasyNumber: 50 million companies in the database in 2008
EasyNumber is an innovative solution with a compelling value proposition providing:
- Powerful searching to uniquely identify companies anywhere in the world
- Simplified access to a comprehensive and reliable worldwide company database
- Allocation of any business worldwide with a single, unique and universal ID, complementary to national ID numbers
- Quality enhancements to clients company databases
- Permanent maintenance of worldwide company identification information
- A web-based toolkit to easily integrate services into software applications
- The basis for depicting global company ownership structures
For Coface, "this project enhances the quality of the information services that we offer companies" explains Jrme Cazes, CEO of Coface. "We have now exceeded the 25 million mark in terms of the number of companies listed. Our aim is to reach 44 million by the end of the year and to cover most European countries and the United States. The goal is to have 50 million companies on the EasyNumber repository as early as 2008".
According to a Creditreform spokesman, "there is currently no open and effective solution available which is capable of creating a unique, global business identifier and providing access to a standardized global business repository. Due to its open and neutral approach, the EasyNumber will create significant opportunities for internationally operating businesses."
An open solution to be made available via an open partner network EasyNumber is the first open initiative of this scale and in order to promote the widest possible adoption by internationally operating companies, its objective is to be used and distributed very widely by business information companies of all types, e.g. credit information companies, credit insurers, marketing information companies, debt management companies, CRM software companies, system integrators, etc.
The EasyNumber also involves a large-scale software infrastructure and will have a specific organisation. Stephen Lord of Coface will lead all Production activities and will notably be responsible for all operational, technical and fulfilment aspects of the Easy system. Richard Dey of Creditreform will lead all Sales & Marketing activities and will notably be responsible for promoting the service and developing the network of Easy partners. Presented for the first time to partners today, the EasyNumber and the Easy web-based services will officially be made available to customers in January, 2008. http://www.coface.com http://www.creditreform.de
COFACE Australia and VEDA ADVANTAGE have joined forces to implement EasyNumber, a universal identification system which allows companies and banks to identify their commercial partners across the world. To date, 58 million business entities are already registered covering 200 countries ranging from Western Europe, to South America, Japan and Singapore. Source: Veda Advantage October 2008
COFACE & EXALEAD: Coface relies on Exalead for its new universal service, EasyNumber: Published 26th March 2009
Exalead CloudView makes identification data accessible in real time, on more than 50 million worldwide businesses
Exalead, European leader of search solutions and information access software in the enterprise and on the web, today announced that Coface, ranked #2 in Credit Management Services(enterprise information and debt management), has selected Exalead CloudView as an information access platform to launch EasyNumber, its new on-line search and business identification service.
A subsidiary of Natixis, Coface is an expert in risk analysis and Post Client Management. Coface advises its clients in protecting, financing, controlling and managing their commercial debt in several business lines including Credit Insurance, Debt Management, Ranking and Enterprise Information as well as Direct Marketing and Press Management. Coface collaborated with Creditreform International, the leading European Credit Management agency, to set up a database for the identification and research of businesses. Wishing to offer their users a truly innovative solution and to separate Coface from the competition, they chose Exaleads search technology.
"The indexing capacity and software performance impressed us, and we rapidly understood that this offer would allow us to create the search service that we wanted for our clients, whilst maintaining control of our global investment (Total Cost of Ownership), software, services, machines and maintenance, explained Jean-Luc Brizard, DSI of Coface Services. In addition, the Exalead solution transparently integrated itself into our architecture and still offered important security guarantees. At last, it took non-Latin characters into account (oriental languages, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arab), phonetic search functions and allowed an unlimited combination of search criteria - a true asset for this type of service."
Deploying Exaleads CloudView will make identification data accessible, in real time, on more than 50 million enterprises in the world through Cofaces website. With Exalead, Coface offers its clients reliable, multilingual and easy access to an exhaustive and reliable worldwide economic and financial information database which includes more than 56 million establishments and more than 50 million companies. This figure is expected to reach 100 million over the next three years.
"Thanks to Exalead CloudView, the customer applications from EasyNumber benefit from a totally innovative service that allows simultaneous improvement of productivity, but above all, disposes of an exhaustive vision of information that is highly sought after. This is a true asset that acts to capture financial information from enterprises," concludes Exalead Managing Director, Raymond Bentinck. We are happy to see our tools serve as a catalyst for the creation of innovative services in the enterprise. Businesses often have ideas that they think are unattainable in terms of performance, flexibility and updating. Our platform allows us to push the limits of classic database tools and offer new opportunities in terms of constructing applications and services. We have many other projects of this kind in progress."
About Coface
Coface, rated AA+ by Fitch Ratings, AA by S&P and Aa3 by Moodys, is a subsidiary of Natixis whose shares (first tier) have risen, by the end of 2006, to 11.2 million euros after the application of CRD/ Ble norms. Cofaces mission is to facilitate exchanges among all companies all over the world. To do this, Coface offers solutions to its 105,000 clients to externalise all or part of the management, financing and protection of their Post Clients: credit insurance, information and business ratings, debt management, collection, direct marketing and press management. Coface also offers management of public guarantees to export on behalf of the governing body of France. Thanks to a quality proximity service and 6,000 collaborators, shared in 60 directly established countries, more than 45% of the 500 biggest world groups are already clients of Coface. http://www.coface.fr
About Cofaces Services
A subsidiary of Coface, it develops services that allow all companies to have reliable information to evaluate their commercial partners financial situation and their ability to honour their engagements (solvency information), or to detect commercial opportunities with solvable clients (information marketing). It places 800 collaborators at their disposition (business information, information marketing, management and debt recovery, IT liaisons & specialists) manifested through 120 consulting contacts capable of responding to questions and adapting the service offer to specific needs.
About Exalead
Founded in 2000 by search engine pioneers, Exalead is a global software provider in the enterprise and Web search markets. Exalead's worldwide client base includes leading companies such as Price Waterhouse Cooper, Michelin, American Greetings and Sanofi Pasteur, and more than 100 million unique users a month use Exalead's technology for search. Today, Exalead is reshaping the digital content landscape with a platform, Exalead CloudView that uses advanced semantic technologies to bring structure, meaning and accessibility to previously unused or under-utilized data in the disparate, heterogeneous enterprise information cloud. The system collects data from virtually any source, in any format, and transforms it into structured, pervasive, contextualized building blocks of business information that can be directly searched and queried, or used as the foundation for a new breed of lean, innovative information access applications.
Exalead is an operating unit of Qualis, an international holding company, with offices in London, Paris, San Francisco, Glasgow, and Milan. Readers who wish to gain more information about Exalead can visit http://www.Exalead.com or contact +44 (0)1698 404630.
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Enterprise Credit Information in Europe
Dr. D. Suedhofen of Verband Creditreform, Germany provided an assessment of the state of the enterprise credit information systems in Europe at the 2nd China International Credit and Risk Conference in Shanghai, PRC on December 8th, 2005
Where does the European Commission stand on this subject? Several years ago the European Commission stated in a special report that well functioning public sector information was essential to provide the necessary transparency in investment and trade credit decisions in support of the movement of capital, goods and people. The EU Commission lamented in its report that EU businesses were at a disadvantage versus their US competitors because European public sector was highly fragmented and incompatible due to different legal systems and technical platforms. In order to provide some remedy, the EU Commission issued a directive in 2005 that specifies guidelines concerning public sector information / private sector information relationships and to foster greater cooperation and partnerships between these sectors.
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Enterprise Credit Information in the People's Republic of China
Virgina Young Presented on the Current State of Enterprise Credit Management Practices in China
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FCS OnLine
FCS OnLine is a wholly owned Australian company specializing in providing consumer information and applications to the Financial, Credit, Collections and Government authorities in Australia and New Zealand. This unequalled resource coupled with residential property information, building application records and address profile information provides essential information for Customer Due Diligence, Consumer Credit Management, Consumer Fraud Prevention, Consumer Debt Collection and Skip Tracing.
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FINANCIAL NEWS
Hugo Dixon, Editor-in-chief and Chairman, Breakingviews.com gave a keynote address at the SIIA Global Information Industry Summit 2008 on the future of financial journalism.
He spoke about the Lost generation and that the age group under 30 may never read papers. Even the older generation is increasingly adopting emails. When it was just news, newspapers could retreat into comment, but growth of internet comment means inexorable hollowing out of influence.
To read the entire presentation click on the attachment
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FRAUD
This white paper on commercial fraud was provided courtesy of Experian
http://www.experian.com
http://www.experian.com/credit_solutions/index.html
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FRAUD: AN EXAMPLE OF COMBATING FRAUD
An Asset Protection Group (APG) Update on the FRAUD case of Michael Murray:
Michael Murray has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for obtaining goods under false pretenses from 71 victim companies. The total estimated loss in this case is $2,304,833.60.
Below is a list of associated companies for which the Asset Protection Group has independently verified were all operated by Murray. Please follow the link to read the complete press release from the United States Attorney's Office, District of Maryland.
Michael Murray has been the subject of APG Alerts and investigations dating back to 2001.
Businesses operated by Michael Murray:
- Easy Access
- Char Enterprises
- M.J. Liquidators t/a Chesapeake Supply
- Supplies R Us
- Highlandtown Wholesale Distributing
- Darma Industries
- Clifton Park
- Sinclair Enterprises
It is a common fraudulent practice to set up a multitude of companies with differenct names to defraud unsuspecting suppliers. Essentially it is the concept of information sharing which brings people like Michael Murray to justice.
For more information regarding this case, please click on the attachment.
ABOUT APG
Trusted, reliable, and dependable information is critical to making sound business decisions. Minimizing risk to acceptable levels requires research, examination and investigation. NACMs Asset Protection Group provides you with valuable information as well as investigative support that will allow you to engage in successful business relationships and help avert losses due to fraud and abuse.
The APG database, domiciled in NACMs headquarters, contains over 30 years of fraud alerts and related data and is a clearinghouse for information supplied to us by our Members as well as local, state and federal law enforcement authorities. This information is continuously updated with current fraud trends and warnings to better serve our Member companies and is critical to the reduction of losses due to fraud and abuse. Additionally, the sharing of information with our Members in the form of Fraud Alerts is our proactive way to disseminate critical information to better serve our Membership.
Fraud Alerts are sent to Members on a weekly basis and provide information about financial crimes, business credit fraud, suspect financial institutions, and corporate and personal identity theft. The information contained in Fraud Alerts disseminated to Members in any of these categories could potentially avert huge losses due to fraud.
NACM = National Association of Credit Management
http://www.nacm.org/
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FUNDAMENTALS OF TRADE CREDIT RISK MANAGEMENT
Trade Credit Risk Management
Fundamentals of the Craft in Theory and Practice
This book incorporates the learning and worldwide experiences drawn from the authors three decades as career executive and educator. The topics evolved from the needs expressed and implied by interaction with customers and colleagues over the years, and those experiences gleaned from direct responsibility for the development and implementation of trade credit and business expansion strategies. Trade Credit Risk Management is also intended to serve a role first, as course resource in support of university undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as certification courses in all disciplines which address subjects of credit, trade credit, risk management, and business development. Additionally, the book represents a continuing reference source for both students and practitioners of the art and science of trade credit risk management.
For details about the content of the book and the author, please click on the attachment.
Patrick O. Connelly
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-4196-6837-4
ISBN-13: 9781419668371
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007903409
For 1-4 additional copies please visit: http://www.booksurge.com
For quantities of 5 or more please contact the author at 727-821-4349
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HEALTH CARE DATA
MARKETING INEFFICIENCIES COULD WASTE SEVEN MILLION PATIENT VISITS ANNUALLY
Information Policy Institute Finds Restrictions on Provider-Identifiable Healthcare Data Are Anti-Competitive and Will Not Lower Drug Prices
Chapel Hill, N.C., April 10, 2007 - The Information Policy Institute, an applied studies center of the Political and Economic Research Council (PERC), today released a study that examines the social and economic costs of prohibiting the use of provider-identifiable prescription data for commercial purposes. Dr. Michael Turner, president of PERC, was the principal author of the study, entitled The Impact of Provider-Identifiable Data on Healthcare Quality and Cost.
Our research found that access to provider-identifiable data for biopharmaceutical companies fosters competition in the industry across all drug classes, Dr. Turner said. Rather than driving prices down, as proponents have argued, legislative restrictions on provider-identified data would actually have the reverse effect.
To date, New Hampshire is the only state which has imposed a law banning the commercial use of provider-identified prescribing data. However, several other New England states including Vermont and Maine are considering similar legislation.
The study found that a ban on provider-identifiable information for commercial purposes would:
slow the speed of adoption of new therapies, and thereby limit their benefits to patients;
reduce competition in the pharmaceutical sector, making it more difficult for small biotech firms to enter the market;
increase the cost of marketing, which could result in higher drug costs.
increase wasted physician time, as pharmaceutical representatives and doctors become increasingly mismatched;
The key finding of the study was that the commercial use of provider-identifiable data enables pharmaceutical companies to more quickly educate appropriate physicians on new drugs, which allows new therapies to be introduced at a relatively faster rate in the U.S. than in any other advanced country. This is particularly true in the context of orphan drugs and risk management programs, which utilize these data to execute FDA-guided programs intended to reduce harm from potentially high-risk drugs. Many of these drugs offer unique therapeutic benefits for small patient populations.
These data also enable pharmaceutical companies to substantially avoid physicians who are uninterested in or who have no need for their products, Dr. Turner said. Without this information, we estimate the cost of mis-matches between physicians and sales reps could amount to $1.4 billion annually and the lost time would be equivalent to 7 million patient visits each year.
Finally, the study examines the growing academic uses of provider-identifiable data. Lee Vermeulen, R.Ph, director of the Center for Drug Policy at the University of Wisconsin Hospital, estimates there are over 1,000 papers in health services and biomedical research journals using these data to identify and analyze various patterns of medication use.
There is no central public repository anywhere in the country that offers researchers such an accurate picture of medication use as is possible with the data from commercial Health Information Organizations (HIOs), like IMS Health and Verispan, Vermeulen said.
The study was funded by an unrestricted educational grant from IMS Health. The full text of the study is available free for download at:
http://www.infopolicy.org/pdf/provider-data.pdf.
About PERC:
The Political and Economic Research Council (PERC) is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank devoted to research, public education and outreach on public policy matters. PERCs goal is to educate and engage policy makers, consumers, the financial/economic community and the larger public, in the firm belief that a better-informed public makes better decisions. Areas of expertise include information policy, credit access and the global information economy. PERC is funded by both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations that support PERCs general mission.
For more information, contact: Patrick Walker
919-338-2798
walker@infopolicy.org
APRIL 10, 2007
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ICTs AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN SERVICE
Presentation by NASSCOM (National Association of Software & Service Companies at the December 4th, 2006 Expert Meeting of UNCTAD on the topic of "Using ICTs to Achieve Growth & Development"
NASSCOM India http://www.nasscom.in
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INDUSTRY INDEXES
WAND considers itself a leading developer of e-commerce related taxonomy and classification systems. For 10 years it has developed structured multi-lingual vocabularies with related tools and services to power precision search and classification applications on the internet. WANDs B2B taxonomy system contains over 65,000 product & service types, with more than 1,250,000 attributes and attribute values, for precise cataloguing and indexing that includes every industry. Its classification system can be easily harmonized with other systems such as SIC, NAICS, UNSPSC and yellow pages. As a classification player WAND should primarily appeal to online directory publishers, however the bursting of the dotcom bubble seems to have tempered their appetite for more efficient classification systems, which may be the main reason for the relatively slow penetration rate of WANDs systems. To date about 17 directory publishers worldwide are using WANDs Network Directory or deploy the WAND classification system under license. WAND has diligently worked on a refinement of its taxonomy to ensure that the most relevant local search terminology is always included. By raising the product and service types from 65,000 to nearly 750,000 terms, WAND anticipates significantly greater efficiencies and higher precision in local search of products and services.
WAND advertises its new expanded system as the most comprehensive taxonomy and thesaurus ever developed specifically for local search. The Local Search Taxonomy consists of more than one million structured and highly relevant local search terms in the top 300 most active local search categories. The vocabulary was created from a rigorous analysis of e-commerce terminology aggregated from search engine query and click through logs, web site metadata, and highly searched terms from e-commerce sites. The result is intended to be an unmatched efficiency in connecting local buyer with local seller, no matter what term the user searches.
WANDs drive for greater precision search may come just at the right time, as electronic commerce seems to thrive again and existing search platforms still lack the desired precision. According to IDC, approximately 19 million people go online on any given day in the US to search for a product and 83 million people have indicated that they have bought products online. Nevertheless, while finding the right information has become of prime importance, current search solutions do not seem to fulfil the information access promise, according to the IDC survey. At the core of the problem lies the fact that existing local search solutions only recognise a limited amount of terminology meaning many searches miss the mark. WANDs Local Search Taxonomy greatly expands the amount of recognised terminology so that every search is funneled to a relevant result for the user. This means a search takes less time, at a lower cost and produces greater satisfaction. With more and more consumers surfing the net for product information, directory publishers should wise up to the fact that by making the search effort more precise, and thus more successful, they can enhance their business prospects. For instance, it did not take long for Canadas largest directory publisher, the Yellow Pages Group (YPG), to license both the English and French language versions of WAND Local Search Taxonomy for integration with its online local search platform. Source: EPS Insights
WAND Inc. is a member of BIIA
http://www.wandinc.com
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INFORMATION AND CREDIT INSURANCE
Martin Jones, General Manager, Atradius Credit Information Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd spoke at the recent FCIB 3rd China International Credit and Risk Conference in Tianjin, China about: Which information does a credit insurer use to cover your risk?
Credit insurers are tapping a wide range of information sources. Credit information companies are just one of many. The depth of information comes from the clients risk portfolio, which is supplemented by qualitative and quantitative information obtained from the risk directly.
Martin Jones concluded with the statement: The credit limit decisions made are only as good as the quality of the information obtained and the underwriters skills in interpreting that information.
http://www.atradius.com
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INFORMATION ASYMMETRY OF A DIFFERENT KIND
Only recently the impact of the credit crunch has become evident to the general public. Who misled them? Was it the media, the FED, congress, the financial community or the information industry or all of the above?
To read the full story click on the attachment
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INFORMATION CONCEPTS
Instant Information, Inc. (a New York based startup company founded in 2004) claims to be a financial information services company providing professional, collaborative solutions to the financial services industry. The term financial information services may be a misnomer because the company does not sell content. Its product, called TouchPoint, is a desk top solution that acts very much like a Bloomberg terminal, but runs on any PC with off-the-shelf software, including Microsoft Office suite. It allows users to collect and integrate information from a wide range of information sources. According to its developer, TouchPoint offers an innovative approach to connecting financial professionals to ideas, information, analytics, and individuals they depend on to do their jobs effectively and efficiently, unencumbered by existing workflows.
Riding on the new wave of user empowerment, TouchPoint is designed to provide a service that moves beyond the limitations of existing financial information products, and allows users to organize information the way they want it organized and shared. As a user finds content on the web, in e-mail, or from other applications, it can be added to any of the TouchPoint folders with one click. Subscription based content can be automatically added to folders using detailed filtering. TouchPoint enables a user to discuss ideas and have the people, content and tools used in a discussion tightly bound in a shared Workbook, which is automatically updated for all existing and new participants. The Workbook becomes a dynamic, historical view into all of the informal content sources that support a formal investment process. TouchPoint is open and extendable. New data sources can be added on-the-fly without any additional development work.
Instant Information focuses on content exchange, management and collaboration within the financial services industry, which includes buy and sell sides, independent advisors, domain experts and treasury, and finance groups within corporations.
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INFORMATION ECONOMY
To fathom the enigma Germany and to provide a contrast between the German, European and Asian information economies, SIIA member Joachim C. Bartels, of Intrepid Explorers, Inc. a US based information consultancy, interviewed Dr. Willi Bredemeier of PASSWORD at the SIIA Global Information Industry Summit.
DR. Bredemeier can be reached: w.bredemeier@gmx.de
Joachim C. Bartels can be reached at: http://www.intrepidex.com or http://www.biia.com
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INFORMATION ECONOMY DEVELOPMENTS
Commentary on German information economy report in PASSWORD Issue 01-07 (http://www.password.online.de) concerning the decline in competitiveness of ICT Services in Germany and Europe and the rise of Asian ICT.
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INFORMATION INDUSTRY
Source: Outsell's Publishers and Information Database
http://www.outsellinc.com
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INFORMATION SHARING AIDS SME FINANCING
PERC Releases Study of Landscape of Small Business Financing in South Africa
September 16, 2008
The Political and Economic Research Council releases its study, Information Sharing and SMME Financing in South Africa: A Survey of the Landscape. The study can be downloaded at:
http://www.infopolicy.org/pdf/South-Africa-compressed-web.pdf
(Chapel Hill, NC) The Political and Economic Research Council (PERC) has released a survey of the small, medium, and micro-enterprise lending landscape in South Africa ahead of the proposed National Credit Register. The study overviews the current state of lending in South Africa, examines specific credit access barriers and viable near-term solutions, and looks at the specific effects and implications of the National Credit Act of 2005.
Key findings include:
- Large lenders such as commercial banks can successfully lend to SMMEs.
- South Africa has an advanced information infrastructure.
- Because of a lack of information, many SMMEs have no access to credit.
- Trade credit and non-financial payment data (alternative data) are underused in South Africa and increased collection from the informal sector could increase credit access.
The report also makes specific recommendations for the proposed National Credit Register. These include:
- In order to permit the sharing of SMME credit information, the NCR must strive to not compete with bureaus but to channel information in a neutral fashion and to keep required reported information to a minimum to protect potential data furnishers from data poachers.
- Development of a registry of collateral can mitigate the risk that the same collateral has been pledged to multiple lenders.
- The guidelines for reckless lending in the NCA should take into account the possibility that consumer loans may be used for commercial purposes.
The report shows that despite South Africas developed information sharing architecture, there is a significant and real need for financing in the second economy.
About PERC: The Political and Economic Research Council (PERC) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization devoted to research, public education and outreach on public policy matters. PERC's goal is to educate and engage policy makers, consumers, the financial/economic community and the larger public, in the firm belief that a better informed public makes better decisions. Areas of expertise include information policy, credit access and the global information economy. The Council is funded by both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations that support the Institute's general mission and agenda.
For more information contact:
Adam Rodman
919-338-2798 ext. 803
rodman@infopolicy.org
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INSOLVENCY STATISTICS
For the first time in four years, corporate insolvencies were slighly lower from the previous year: 2005 - 147,239 versus 2004 - 150,312. Read more in the attached story provided courtesey of Creditreform Germany (http://www.creditreform.de)
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INVESTING PRIVATE CAPITAL IN EMERGING MARKET SMEs
BIIA recently participated in a panel on Financial Infrastructure & Risk Mitigation and presented on the subject of Commercial Risk Information as it relates to SMEs in Emerging Markets.
BIIA highlighted the current factors that contribute to asymmetries in information and specific issues concerning the availability and reliability of information on SMEs. BIIA stressed the point that a concerted effort of public sector information institutions, central banks, banks, trade credit grantors and the information industry is essential to remove the primary causes for information asymmetries: Improvement in public sector information, mandatory and voluntary disclosure and introduction of the concept of information sharing.
Click on the attachment to view the entire presentation. For further information contact: Joachim C. Bartels at ieijcb@attglobal.net
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LEAD GENERATION
WHITEPAPER provided courtesy of Hoover's Inc.
53% to 88% of business to business professional services buyers are willing to switch to new service providers. These buyers are indifferent, at best, in their affinity to their current providers. While you may be the exception to the rule, this probably includes you. Fortunately for the weak service providers, clients typically find it a great risk, and a painful experience, to switch. They don't know if the provider down the street-or across the country-will treat and serve them better. They may not know who the other players in the field are. So, while buyers perceive that they're not getting everything they can from their current provider, at least with someone familiar they can predict what they'll get and what they won't get. "Perhaps that's enough," they might think. Thus, most buyers don't switch.
To read the full story click on the attachment
Source: http://www.hoovers.com
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LENDING CREDIT RESPONSIBLY
Veda Advantage calls for changes to Australian Federal Law to create a more responsible lending environment
Australias largest custodian of credit-related information, Veda Advantage, called on the Federal Government to improve responsible lending practices in Australia by updating out-dated legislation which governs credit reporting practices.
http://www.vedaadvantage.com
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MANAGING CASH FLOW IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
Cash flow is the lifeblood of every business. Current estimates indicate that approximately 90 per cent of business failures are the result of poor cash flow and debt management practices. However many SMEs remain unaware of these impacts or how to prevent them.
The lag between the provision of a product or service and receipt of payment can cause significant problems. Bad payers considerably reduce business cash flow, draining the funds that are required for the day-to-day running of operations or could be used for growth. In addition, bad payers stretch internal resources as staff are required to recover overdue amounts or are pushed to increase sales to make up the shortfall.
Dun & Bradstreets data reveals that business-to-business trade payments have been at alarmingly high levels since the introduction of the GST in 2000. Businesses are currently averaging 55.8 days to pay their bills. This means that businesses are being denied access to their own funds for a period of close to four weeks.
TO READ THE FULL STORY PLEASE CLICK ON THE ATTACHMENT
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MARKET INTELLIGENCE
The GIA White Paper Global Market Intelligence Survey 2008 uncovers linkages between organizational decision-making and Market Intelligence operations.
Differences by industries and regions were measured along with key success factors of MI. Responses were collected from 439 participants on five continents, making the survey the most comprehensive study that has been conducted in area of Market Intelligence to date.
To read the full survey click on the attachment. Source: Global Intelligence Alliance
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MARKET SEGMENTATION - FINANCIAL SERVICES MARKETING
Behavioral Segmentation in Financial Services Marketing. By Information Asset Partners
The attached paper addresses the value of using consumer behavioral metrics throughout the marketing process. Some highlights:
Overcoming inherent limitations of internal marketing data
Developing market-based, behavioral metrics
Applying IAPs Empirics segmentation in market analysis, campaign targeting, and benchmarking
According to the author, the paper offers some new ideas on how to look at consumers based on the buying dynamics in the market. New Empirics segmentations that augment the solutions product-based metrics were recently added:
Direct mail affinity for financial products
Investable assets and Net Worth
Switch auto insurer
Switch health insurer
Fee-based financial advisor
Anyone wishing to discuss the paper or how Empirics can improve marketing processes should contact:
Raisa Suhir
Information Asset Partners
Office/Fax: 650-968-4611
Mobile: 650-823-3316
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MARKETING - DIRECT MAIL
About LeadGenesys
Led by seasoned B2B lead generation experts, LeadGenesys enables marketers to deliver higher quality and quantity of leads to sales teams. The web-hosted LeadGenesys Suite and flexible deployment of lead-gen services enables companies to optimize the early stage of the B2B sales cycle without having to customize or be constrained by the limitations of SFA (sales force automation) solutions.
Information provided courtesy of Jeff Kostermans, President of LeadGenesys
http://www.leadgenesys.com
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MARKETING - LEAD GENERATION
About LeadGenesys
Led by seasoned B2B lead generation experts, LeadGenesys enables marketers to deliver higher quality and quantity of leads to sales teams. The web-hosted LeadGenesys Suite and flexible deployment of lead-gen services enables companies to optimize the early stage of the B2B sales cycle without having to customize or be constrained by the limitations of SFA (sales force automation) solutions.
Information provided courtesy of Jeff Kostermans, President of LeadGenesys
http://www.leadgenesys.com
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MARKETING - LEAD GENERATION
About LeadGenesys
Led by seasoned B2B lead generation experts, LeadGenesys enables marketers to deliver higher quality and quantity of leads to sales teams. The web-hosted LeadGenesys Suite and flexible deployment of lead-gen services enables companies to optimize the early stage of the B2B sales cycle without having to customize or be constrained by the limitations of SFA (sales force automation) solutions.
Information provided courtesy of Jeff Kostermans, President of LeadGenesys
http://www.leadgenesys.com
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MARKETING - LEAD GENERATION
About LeadGenesys
Led by seasoned B2B lead generation experts, LeadGenesys enables marketers to deliver higher quality and quantity of leads to sales teams. The web-hosted LeadGenesys Suite and flexible deployment of lead-gen services enables companies to optimize the early stage of the B2B sales cycle without having to customize or be constrained by the limitations of SFA (sales force automation) solutions.
Information provided courtesy of Jeff Kostermans, President of LeadGenesys
http://www.leadgenesys.com
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MARKETING - LEAD GENERATION
About LeadGenesys
Led by seasoned B2B lead generation experts, LeadGenesys enables marketers to deliver higher quality and quantity of leads to sales teams. The web-hosted LeadGenesys Suite and flexible deployment of lead-gen services enables companies to optimize the early stage of the B2B sales cycle without having to customize or be constrained by the limitations of SFA (sales force automation) solutions.
Information provided courtesy of Jeff Kostermans, President of LeadGenesys
http://www.leadgenesys.com
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MEDIA REGULATION IN CHINA
The key starting point of any discussion of media regulation in China is the fact that the government in Beijing remains firmly in charge of market. The governments objective is to maintain control of content and, by extension, all forms of media; print, broadcast, events and the Internet.
It is important to recognize that the Chinese government currently does not view media as an industry or a market. Instead, it is seen as both a potential threat that could be used to undermine government policies and a potential tool useful in the formation of public opinion and promotion of government policy. This view informs much of Beijings regulatory policy.
A recent WTO court case underscores this point. According to the China Law Blog (CLB), the U.S. has a strategy of using WTO court cases as tool to attempt to pry open media markets in China. However, CLB is not optimistic about the chances of this strategy succeeding.
" ... This attempt to open the market for media products will fail. The Chinese government does not see media and ideas and the rest as a "market". They see it differently. They see it as an impediment to government control. Accordingly, they have no intention of ever opening this "market". Consistent with this basic viewpoint, China makes no attempt to seriously protect its own media. Chinese film, TV, books, magazines, music, visual arts and the rest are routinely pirated and the associated businesses and artists are left undeveloped and in poverty. That is changing in small increments, but not in any serious way."
China Law Blog notes that the protection of patents, trademarks and designs are improving as the central government can see how a strong enforcement of these can benefit the manufacturing export giant that China has become. However, the government remains deeply suspicious of media products as a potential threat to governmental authority.
This does not bode well for media companies, (although historically B2B media is seen as much less of a threat) with an eye on the market in China. As CLB points out, domestic media companies in China are suffering just as much as the foreign media firms. If the authorities are not willing to protect Chinese media firms, then the outlook for foreign firms is certainly no better.
Despite these challenges, the regulatory environment in China is changing. Traditionally, print publications have received considerable attention from regulators, but the complexity of controlling the Internet has understandably become the focus of nervous bureaucrats in Beijing. Consequently, print and events are receiving comparatively less attention.
Online gaming is good example of what is currently capturing the attention and resources of regulators in China. Regulators are tasked with approving games which are suitable for youths in China, policing access to those games, implementing a real name authentification system, developing a rating system, issuing gaming publication codes as well as implementing gaming import controls to mitigate foreign cultural influences. And this just relates to online gaming. Regulators are also concerned with mobile content, online bulletin boards, Internet cafs, foreign websites, etc.
After considering the complexity related to online regulation, print and events begin to appear simpler and less threatening. Despite this, the basic structure and approach regulating business media publishers in China is still largely intact. The government made some changes to loosen its grip in some sectors of the market, most notably events and advertising sales. There is, however, still little commitment to open up media ownership in China and no sign of one in the near to medium term future. Despite this key restriction, advertising, event organising and media distribution operations can be owned up to 100% by foreign enterprises.
To find out more about the regulatory environment in China's media industry, contact Business Strategies Group (BSG), Hong Kong: contact Mark Cochrane, Director: Mark@bsgasia.com of Kerry Wong, Researcher Kerry@bsgasia.com
BSG Asia is a founder member of BIIA
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MEET OUR AFFILIATED INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION MEMBER FCIB
Founded in 1919, FCIB is an international membership group with more than 800 members in 35 countries around the world. In addition to world headquarters in the U.S., FCIB maintains operations in Europe, Mexico and Canada, and will soon open the doors of FCIB China.
In addition to its world headquarters in the U.S., FCIB maintains operations in Europe, Mexico and Canada, and will soon open the doors of FCIB China.
FCIB WORLD HEADQUARTERS
8840 Columbia 100 Parkway
Columbia, MD 21045-2158
USA
Phone: 410/423-1840 888/256-3242
Fax: 410/423-1845
E-mail: fcib_info@fcibglobal.com
FCIB EUROPE
7200, The Quorum Oxford Business Park
North Garsington Road
Oxford, United Kingdom OX4 2JZ
Phone: 44-1865-481630
Fax: 44-1865-481482
Email: timlane@fcib-europe.org
FCIB (China)
5th Floor, Greenland S&T Building, Suite C
201 Ningxia Road, Shanghai 200063
China
Phone: 86 (021) 51159080
Fax: 86 (021) 51159298
E-mail: info@fcibglobal.com.cn
Website: http://www.fcibglobal.com.cn
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MEET OUR AFFILIATED MEMBER SCIP
ABOUT SCIP
The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) is a global nonprofit membership organization for everyone involved in creating and managing business knowledge. Our mission is to enhance the success of our members through leadership, education, advocacy, and networking.
Specifically, SCIP provides education and networking opportunities for business professionals working in the rapidly growing field of competitive intelligence (the legal and ethical collection and analysis of information regarding the capabilities, vulnerabilities, and intentions of business competitors). Many SCIP members have backgrounds in market research, strategic analysis, or science and technology.
Established in 1986, today SCIP has chapters around the world, with individual members in nations around the globe. In addition, SCIP has alliance partnerships with independent affiliate organizations in many countries.
THE NEED FOR A CI COMMUNITY
As an organization of individual CI professionals, SCIP is dedicated to providing you with the training and knowledge to pilot your company towards competitive success while maintaining the highest ethical standards. From educational seminars to networking opportunities, SCIP emphasizes the need for CI professionals to learn from each other and stay aware of the latest developments in information gathering, analysis, and dissemination. Through our special events and publications, SCIP members survey changes in the business environment and know, before anyone else, what lies ahead.
While some decision makers may attempt to sail blindly through the global marketplace, it is the duty of the trained CI professional to show them alternative courses that will avoid potential dangers, and to take advantage of the tactics and strategies that lead to bottom-line success.
WHY IS CI IMPORTANT?
The pace of technological development and the growth of global trade mean that today's business environment changes more quickly than ever before. Executives can no longer afford to rely on instinct or intuition when making strategic business decisions. In many industries, the consequence of making one wrong decision may be to see the company go out of business.
For further information click on: http://www.scip.org/
The BIIA membership welcomes the SCIP organization to its Global Network of information professionals
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER ASCEND
Ascend is the world's leading provider of specialist information and consultancy services to the global air transport industry. For over four decades Ascend has made it its business to supply the most reliable, trusted, up-to-date aviation industry information and insight available anywhere.
Today, all of Ascend's market-leading products and services are built to answer the needs for decision-support information, insight and consultancy across a wide spectrum. Ascend's offerings include:
- Aviation Fleet Information - Valuations and Appraisals -
- Technical and Commercial Solutions - Market Analysis
- Airport Economics - Space Analytics
From aircraft manufacturers to operators, financiers, lessors and suppliers, the aviation industry relies on Ascend to help them make informed decisions and capture new opportunities.
To find out what ASCEND does click on the link: http://www.ascendworldwide.com/what_we_do.aspx
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER BREAKINGVIEWS.COM
Breakingviews is the worlds leading source of online financial comment. Three times every working day it publishes indispensable views and insight, on all the stories that matter, to the financial community in Europe, the US and Asia. From market events to deal analysis, award-winning journalists consistently set the agenda.
Whats important and why.
Published direct to the inboxes and Blackberries of the worlds financial elite, Breakingviews is read daily by investment banks, institutional investors, hedge fund managers, corporations, law firms and media companies. Syndicated columns in the Wall Street Journal and papers in Europe and Asia give a glimpse of Breakingviews to a global readership of more than four million.
Views one can use
Breakingviews regularly anticipates market and stock movements. Our writers always make a call.
Intelligent and independent
Breakingviews doesnt tell you whats happening; instead we explain why, providing genuine insight and provoking fresh ideas.
Speed of thought
BV reacts to stories as they develop. We give you a considered view in near real-time faster than mainstream media.
Sceptical and provocative
BV writers are free to take their own line. Often contrarian,our writers have license to be sharp and provocative where the view demands it.
BV on Blackberry
Get Breakingviews stories as they are published both in your inbox and direct to your Blackberry.
For more information contact:
http://www.breakingviews.com/AboutUs.aspx
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER C3 BUSINESS INFORMATION, INC.
C3 Business information, Inc. (C3BI) delivers the highest quality company information available.
C3BI distributes SkyMinder in the Americas. SkyMinder is the premier source of international credit reports. C3 also produces personalized US company reports that are Current, Comprehensive and Compelling (C3).
Using multiple sources and personal investigative techniques, the C3 Business Reports are perfect for file reviews and those situations where you have time to allow the best possible reports to be produced and utilized in decision support.
C3 products can be categorized in the following way:
- Global Company Credit Reports
- Developed US Company Reports written on demand and guaranteed
The target market is a company that does business in multiple countries and needs the best possible company credit information and/or a company that sells in the US and needs the highest quality US information possible and has enough lead time to wait for delivery.
To contact C3 Business Information, Inc. click on the links or consult: BIIA Member Directory http://www.biia.com/memberDirectory.php
http://www.c3bizinfo.com
http://www.skyminder.com
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER CREDITEYES
Crediteyes International Credit & Collection Co., Ltd (Crediteyes), based in China, is a professional supplier of business information and credit management service.
Now Crediteyes ranks as the third largest credit agency in China with 20% market share. Our service covers 190 countries around the world.
For the enterprises in business exploration phase, our "Market Investigation" service can give you an insight into undiscovered market, and provides strong support for your product positioning, pricing strategy, channel management, marketing and promotion etc.
For the enterprises in business development phase, our Database Marketing service can help you to develop profitable customer relationship by adopting accurate DM (Direct Marketing) strategy.
For the enterprises in transaction decision-making phase, our "Credit Report" can help you identify commercial risks, keep healthy and stable development while enlarge your business scale.
For the enterprises in transaction settlement phase, our "Accounts Receivable Management" service can help you to narrow down DSO (Days of Sales Outstanding) and collect overdue debts, therefore guarantee your cash flow is healthy.
Through many years' exploration and development, Crediteyes has own many excellent clients such as globally famous credit insurers, financial institutions and many Global 500 enterprises. We expect to provide service for you and create ever-increasing enterprise
For more information contact:
http://www.crediteyes.com
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER CREDITREFORM
The Creditreform alliance was established in Germany in 1879. At the beginning the alliance only consisted of national information offices and and gradually became an international organization.
The Creditreform alliance has one of the most significant databank in Europe. It has information about more than three million companies, the offices belonging to the alliance are employ more than 3700 people. The turnover of the alliance reached EUR 500 million in 2004.
The internationalism of the classifying credit report service means guarantee for all clients because the standardized classifying and data publication provides that a local and a foreign client would interpret the received information in the same way.
Minimising the risk of bad debts in international business and clarifying debt collection and related legal issues on the spot with the help of local specialists - that is the task Creditreform International has set itself.
Products and Services:
Credit Reports: Trust is good, but credit checks are better. Do you have doubts about the solvency of your new business partner? As a Creditreform member you can access important company data about your business partner from our database in just one click. The German database consists of 3.6 million reports.
Accounts Receivable Management Services: Efficient accounts receivable management secures liquidity! Whether you want to outsource your total dunning procedure or just recover a few debts, our web debt collection service offers you the comfortable option of processing and following up your debt collection requests online.
Marketing Services: Are you looking for new clients? We offer various databases on CD-Rom or DVD, which allow you to select customers from your target groups in Austria, Germany or Europe and use them for marketing campaigns.
Credit Risk Management: As your customer base increases, it becomes more important to make automatic credit decisions in order to reduce the risk of bad debts. Our product portfolio offers intelligent solutions including CrefoScore for Windows, CrefoSprint for SAP R/3, APPC and file transfer interface, risk analysis and score cards as well as an exchange pool for payment experiences(ZaC).
Creditreform Rating: The demand for internal financial analysis are constantly increasing. A Creditreform rating signalises creditworthiness, increases trust in business partners and serves as a good basis for reasoning at the bank when discussing your finance options.
Creditreform maintains offices in 14 European countries.
http://www.creditreform.de
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER D&B PHILIPPINES
Welcome to Dun & Bradstreet Philippines
D&B products and services help turn information into insight to develop conclusive, fact-based strategies that will help gain a competitive edge and transform an enterprise into a nimble, customer-focused, more profitable business. As the leading provider of business and consumer information for credit, marketing and purchasing decisions worldwide, D&B helps to perform a wide range of business analyses.
Risk Management Solutions help to make more confident decisions, accelerate cash flow and monitor performance.
Sales and Marketing Solutions help to locate new business partners and identify new prospects and optimize relationships with existing customers.
Supply Management Solutions fully qualify suppliers and identify savings. Optimizing procurement information.
Receivable Management Solutions help companies to recover debt and manage accounts receivable more efficiently.
D&Bs Export Market Solutions help to find overseas buyers for products and services.
Data Consultancy Services help to estimate aggregate demand for products and services, Enhance the value of internal databases by appending valuable D&B data.
Credit Bureau Solutions.D&B has set up and managed several credit bureaus globally and its premier position is due to its international presence, extensive expertise in the business information industry, technical know-how, project management processes and product & systems development skills. Business Education Solutions aimed at credit professionals. D&B provides Business Education Solutions in South Asia & Middle East in the area of Credit & Financial Training. Economic Analysis Solutions.D&B provides value added economic and statistical consultancy solutions to companies and governments.
http://www.dnb.com.ph
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER D&B SOUTH ASIA & MIDDLE EAST
Welcome to D&B South Asia & Middle East
D&B is the leading provider of business-to-business credit, marketing, purchasing, collection services and decision-support services in South Asia & Middle East and worldwide.
Risk Management Solutions help you make more confident decisions, accelerate cash flow and monitor performance. D&B has set up and managed several credit bureaus globally and its premier position is due to its international presence, extensive expertise in the business information industry, technical know-how, project management processes and product & systems development skills.
D&B assists Governments, Institutions and Corporates in evaluating business opportunities and risks leading to strategy formulation and implementation
Clients rely on D&Bs Economic Analysis Group (EAG) to gain insight into industries, markets and economies globally.
D&B Financial Education Solutions are designed to help businesses create and improve their competitive edge. D&B FES have helped thousands of executives globally to excel, grow and succeed.
D&Bs Export Marketing Solutions help you find overseas buyers for your products and services.
Data Consultancy Services help you to estimate aggregate demand for your products and services, Enhance the value of internal databases by appending valuable D&B data.
http://www.dnbsame.com
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER FINAR
Welcome to Finar D&B
D&B products and services help you turn information into insight to develop conclusive, fact-based strategies that will help you gain a competitive edge and transform your enterprise into a nimble, customer-focused, more profitable business. As the leading provider of business information for credit, marketing and purchasing decisions worldwide, D&B helps you perform a wide range of business analyses.
Finar D&B, a member of D&B Worldwide Network, is proud to offer Turkish businesses the entire range of D&Bs information products helping you to increase your competitive edge in international business environments.
Learn more about how Finar D&B may help you achieve better results in
Reducing your business risks,
Finding profitable new customers,
Optimizing your supply base,
Measuring your credit risks using scorecards, and
Be more informed about financial analysis techniques.
Finar D&Bye Hogeldiniz
D&B rn ve hizmetleri, bilgiye dayal ynetim stratejileri gelitirmenizde yardmc olarak firmanzn rekabeti, mteri odakl ve ok daha krl faaliyet srdrmesini salar. D&B kredi, pazarlama ve satn alma kararlarnz srasnda gerekli olan ticari bilgiyi size salayan dnyann bu konudaki lider kurulularndan biridir. D&Bnin rn ve hizmetleri ile derinlemesine mteri/tedariki analizleri yapabilir, sat ve satn alma risklerinizi doru olarak deerlendirebilirsiniz.
Bir D&B Worldwide Network yesi olan Finar D&B, Trk firmalarna yerli ve yabanc bilgi kaynaklarna dayal raporlar sunarak firmanzn uluslararas ticari ortamdaki rekabet gcn ykseltmenize yardmc olmaktadr.
Finar D&B destei ile;
Ticari risklerinizi azaltabilir,
Krl yeni mteriler bulabilir,
Tedariki anz glendirebilir ve geniletebilir,
Scorecardlar ile kredi riskinizi len sistemlere sahip olabilir, ve
Finansal analiz tekniklerini renerek mterileriniz/tedarikileriniz hakknda daha doru deerlendirmeler yapabilirsiniz.
http://www.finar.com.tr
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER GRAYDON INTERNATIONAL
Graydon International is a leading provider of credit information on companies all over the world. Any company dealing with credit risks, such as credit insurers, banks, exporters and other trading companies can benefit from Graydon's knowledge and experience. Graydon's credit information helps to reduce credit risks and provides full insight in the creditworthiness of potential and current business partners.
Graydon credit information is up to date and reliable. Its credit reports are easily read in English and delivered at competitive prices. There are no pre-paid subscription charges and one can pay by invoice or online or by credit card. Its that simple.
Graydon International offers more than high quality credit reports from all over the world. Graydon credit information also available in XML data that enables users to integrate Graydon data into their own financial IT systems or network. Last but not least, Graydon can offer tailor made solutions like credit decisions software based on users own credit rules.
With more than 100 years experience and knowledge, Graydon is a well known supplier in Europes markets and is gaining increased recognition as an international supplier of credit information in the rest of the world. Today, Graydons international network of databases contains over 60 million companies relying on a worldwide network of correspondents and distributors.
Graydon International is an initiative of the Graydon Group, owned by three of Europes leading credit insurance organizations: Atradius, Coface and Euler Hermes. Its headquarters are established in London, the United Kingdom.
http://www.graydoninternational.com
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER ICRA GROUP INDIA
ICRA Limited (formerly Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency of India Limited) was set up in 1991 by leading financial/investment institutions, commercial banks and financial services companies as an independent and professional Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency. Today, ICRA and its subsidiaries together form the ICRA Group of Companies (Group ICRA). ICRA is a Public Limited Company, with its shares listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange.
http://www.icra.in
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER STANDARD & POOR'S
Standard & Poor's is the world's leading provider of independent investment research, indexes and ratings. S&P's widely recognized investment data and analysis are used around the world by financial decision-makers to help create growth and manage wealth. Among S&P's many products are the S&P 1200, the premier global equity performance benchmark; the S&P 500, the premier U.S. portfolio index; and credit ratings on more than 220,000 securities and funds worldwide. S&P's businesses include credit market services and investment services.
Standard & Poor's Risk Solutions focuses on developing and enhancing internal credit rating systems and providing tools for credit portfolio analysis. Our solutions address all major components of an internal rating system, including tools and methodologies for the analysis of probability of default, loss given default, and exposure at default. These integrated credit risk management solutions leverage Standard & Poor's experience in credit assessment to help institutions manage credit risk, calculate economic and regulatory capital, and manage their balance sheets more effectively.
For institutions with credit risk exposures, sound credit assessment lies at the foundation of a range of business decisions including the granting of credit, pricing, and, especially for banks, loan provisioning and economic capital allocation. Risk Solutions develops credit assessment criteria, methodologies, and data to help institutions manage credit activities across industry sectors and lines of business with appropriate independence and oversight. We are committed to delivering the highest quality credit risk solutions and analytical services designed to support an institution's business needs, and address complex regulatory and economic capital requirements.
http://www.standardandpoors.com
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MEET OUR ASSOCIATE MEMBER THE MCGRAW-HILL COMPANIES
The McGraw-Hill Companies has been a leader in providing trusted information and analysis for well over a century. From the Industrial Revolution to the Internet Revolution, The McGraw-Hill Companies has filled a critical need for information and insight by helping individuals and businesses in a broad range of markets.
In 1999, the corporation celebrated the 125th anniversary of two of its longest running publications, Engineering News-Record and Electrical World. Started during the industrial revolution, those publications were leaders in reporting on new developments, while providing information in a variety of formats. Taking advantage of the Internet, BusinessWeek expanded its online presence with BusinessWeek Online. The corporation also leveraged the content of Standard & Poor's and BusinessWeek with the issuance of S&P Personal Wealth, and strengthened its medical publishing unit by purchasing Appleton and Lange. In addition, the corporation streamlined its operation by selling four chemical magazines and two Italian publishing companies.
During 2000, The McGraw-Hill Companies' three segments witnessed global growth in a variety of areas. The Financial Information Services segment expanded in non-traditional ratings services, corporate governance in emerging markets, and added new products to the S&P Indexes. The K-12 education business increased its market share and developed new products for higher education and testing. The Information & Media segment continued growth internationally and achieved record advertising sales. For example, new online portals were created to serve the aviation, energy and construction markets. Streamlining of the corporation's business continued with the sale of Tower Group. Acquisitions of the Mayfield Publishing Company and Tribune Education contributed to further development of size and scale in the Education business.
In spite of the challenging economic conditions in 2001, the corporation achieved success in its Financial Information Services and Education business units, but not in the Information & Media area. McGraw-Hill Education continued its push for innovative learning materials with the McGraw-Hill Learning Network's new digital products. The acquisition of Frank Schaffer Publishing and the integration of Tribune Education products strengthened the childrens publishing arena. Standard & Poor's acquired Corporate Value Consulting from PricewaterhouseCoopers, adding significant new capabilities. The acquisition of FT Energy strengthened Platts' present offering of products.
Solid performances in Financial Services and by the McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Professional and International Group, improvement in the advertising market and prudent cost controls helped the Corporation achieve double-digit growth in a challenging year. In addition to its continuing emphasis on global growth and product diversification, Standard & Poor's continued to provide leadership to its markets. It introduced a new methodology for evaluating companies' "core earnings" and published a study and rankings on corporate transparency, governance and disclosure practices. McGraw-Hill Higher Education grew at double-digit rates and its products sold well worldwide. In the U.S. McGraw-Hill School Education Group captured 32% of the K12 (students ages 4-17) adoption market versus 29% in 2001. Although it was a challenging environment, Information & Media continued to serve new markets with partnerships and offerings such as BusinessWeek TV, which is now broadcast in 188 U.S. markets, and the Homeland Security Conference and Exposition. Platts' successful integration of FT Energy enabled it to provide new capabilities in the areas of database, research and consulting services, while McGraw-Hill Construction rebranded itself and delivered a strong bottom line performance. Finally, BtoB magazine recognized the strength of the Corporation and the success of its strategy by naming The McGraw-Hill Companies No. 1 on its "Top 10 Business Media Powerhouses" list.
http://www.mcgraw-hill.com
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MEET OUR FOUNDER MEMBER BUSINESS STRATEGIES GROUP (BSG)
Business Strategies Group Ltd. is a specialist consultancy firm serving the business media, events and information industries. Founded in Hong Kong in 2000 its services include business intelligence, business development and strategy planning, and commercial due diligence for the business media and events industries. The team managing the company is experienced in start-up management, mergers and acquisitions, e-business conceptualization and strategy development, planning development and implementation, corporate management and multi-national operations.
BSG has recently introduced the Asian Business Media Tracker, a subscription based service which offers an in-depth, weekly summary of the news about business publishing and exhibitions in Asia. The BSG Tracker publishes six industry reports annually, covering markets and issues of critical importance to companies involved in business media in Asia.
For further information call Miss Jess Wong on +852 2525 6129 or contact http://www.bsgasia.com
Business Strategies Group Ltd.
Room 1101, Wilson House, 19-27 Wyndham Street, Central, Hong Kong
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MEET OUR FOUNDER MEMBER INTREPID EXPORERS, INC.
Intrepid Explorers, Inc. (IEI) specializes in serving information content providers in the development of new international markets, the identification and selection of potential partners, the development of new strategies and information concepts. IEI also serves clients outside the information content industry, but which may have a keen interest in entering or investing in the content industry. IEI advises the banking sector (including Central Banks) in information pooling of loan performance data and in setting up Credit Bureau operations.
Joachim C. Bartels founded Intrepid Explorers, Inc. in 2000. Bartels is an information specialist with over 40 years of global business experience (operations, planning, M&A, divestitures, market & key account development); of which 35 years were in business-to-business, direct marketing and business information services environments. He pioneered new information concepts, new business models and set up businesses in emerging markets with continually changing political and economic environments.
Bartels held line and staff management positions at the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation in the USA, and Europe. As senior vice president, Bartels managed D&Bs business development program that spanned the globe with a particular emphasis on China, Eastern Europe, India and South East Asia. He was also responsible for D&Bs strategic relationship with the credit insurance industry [Berne Union and ICISA members].
Bartels debates on a regular basis with political and industry leaders around the world about the role of information in national economies and business decision processes, plus the need to create information infrastructures as a basis for economic growth. He is a regular participant in information and credit management forums working on issues concerned with the value of information in trade credit decisions.
http://www.intrepidex.com
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MEET OUR FOUNDER MEMBERS OUTSELL AND EPS
Outsell is the only market research and advisory company that focuses on the entire information industry, worldwide. Our analysts and consultants work with publishers and information providers to track and respond to competitors and disruptive new entrants, changing market demands of advertisers, users, and buyers, and new technology's impact. We also work with information management executives to benchmark spending and demonstrate best practices. Outsell invests significantly in original research each year, providing relevant, actionable, and fact-based recommendations. With Outsell, information industry clients optimize their business strategies, plans, and performance.
EPS Background
For 20 years, EPS has provided market intelligence and advisory services exclusively for the information industry. Since its inception, the company has advised major international players as well as smaller organizations in the U.K., Europe and U.S. Its coverage areas include Scientific, Technical & Medical; Education; Professional (legal, accountancy, financial services); Business to Business; Newspaper Content; and Public Sector. It has led the way in industry research in China and India and other important emerging markets.
Outsell, Inc. of Burlingame, CA, acquired Electronic Publishing Services Ltd (EPS) of London in August of 2006. The acquisition makes Outsell the only research and advisory firm covering all aspects of the information industry worldwide.
http://www.outsellinc.com
http://www.epsltd.com
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER AR GROUP THAILAND
AR Group was established with an aim to provide comprehensive information services for every industrial segment. We offer not only a collection of data, but also add value that transforms information into knowledge. Our services can help increase business efficiency and better management decisions.
We believe that knowledge is a necessity for the countrys development. AR Groups services will be play a part in developing our society and nation. We expect that our services can be a foundation of the knowledge-based society where everyone helps in creating a better society, and improving industrial competitiveness to meet standards at the international level. We will be The knowledge provider for the Thai society forever.
Starting from the IT publication business, today, AR Group has gradually expended into four main business groups consisting of twelve business units:
MASS MEDIA AND EDUCTION GROUP: MME
1. A.R. Information and Publication Co., Ltd. (ARiP)
2. A.R. Business Press Co., Ltd. (ARBP)
3. ITIT Co., Ltd. (ITIT)
ONLINE BUSINESS & INFORMATION GROUP: OBI
4. Business Online Co., Ltd. (BOL)
5. ANET Co., Ltd. (ANET)
6. DataOne Asia (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (D1)
7. ACERTs Co., Ltd. (ACERTs)
CORPORATE CONSULTATION SERVICES GROUP: CCSA
8. AR Research
9. Core & Peak Co., Ltd. (Core & Peak)
10. A.R. Accounting Consultant Co., Ltd. (ARAC)
11. ACONNECT Contact Center
CHANNEL & DISTRIBUTION GROUP: C&D
12. AR4U The Knowledge Network (AR4U)
Advance Research Group
27 Charoen Nakorn 14 Rd.,
Klongtonsai, Klongsan,
Bangkok 10600 THAILAND
http://www.ar.co.th
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER ASOCIACION PANAMERA DE CREDITO
La Asociacin Panamea de Crdito (APC) es la entidad que brinda en Panam el servicio de informacin de referencias de crdito, fundamental para el correcto funcionamiento del sistema crediticio en el pas.
Fundada en 1957, APC mantiene altos estndares de calidad demostrados en la certificacin ISO 9001:2000; promueve la innovacin tecnolgica mediante el desarrollo de herramientas de evaluacin cientfica de riesgo; y contribuye a ampliar el acceso al crdito tanto a individuos como emprendedores y empresarios de la micro y pequea empresa.
La Asociacin Panamea de Crdito contribuye a crear un sistema de crdito ms inclusivo y objetivo para todos los segmentos de la poblacin, al tiempo que ofrece al consumidor una orientacin que le ayuda a utilizar el crdito adecuadamente.
APC
Casa Matriz, Calle 50
Tel. 215-7002
Fax. 215-7023
Calle 50, Edif. Banco General, Piso 17
Apdo. 0816-02460 Rep. de Panam
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER CRIF S.p.A
CRIF, an international success story
CRIF is a Europe-based company, established in 1988 in Bologna (Italy), specialized in the development and management of credit reporting, business information and decision support systems with operations in Western, Central and Eastern Europe and in the Americas.
CRIFs mission is to support financial institutions, service providers, businesses and consumers with its complete range of informative services and solutions so that they can easily make informed decisions.
The company supports banking and financial institutions, insurance companies, utilities and general businesses in every phase of client relations. CRIFs contribution involves planning strategies for accurate market evaluation, including its local characteristics, the acquisition of new clients through timely and reliable support systems for the assessment of credit and commercial risks, and for marketing. It furthermore involves portfolio management and development through careful and constant monitoring of activities and the definition of strategies targeting business expansion, and debt collection activity through specialized companies.
Thanks to its capability to develop long term partnerships with its clients, CRIF is the leader in the provision of solutions for the retail and SME (small medium enterprises) markets in Italy and in several other countries thanks to its credit bureau which facilitates the credit underwriting process and credit access for households and businesses. More than 1200 banking and financial institutions use CRIF services on a daily basis.
To read the entire CRIF story click on the attachment
http://www.crif.com
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER D&B AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND
In Australia we have been operating since 1887 and in New Zealand we began in Wellington in 1903 as a correspondent country. In 1987 The D&B Corporation recognised the strategic importance of the New Zealand economy and hence established a direct operation.
D&B operates today under the name D&B Australasia (DBA). DBA currently employs over 500 professionals in Australia and New Zealand (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide & Auckland). DBA is market leader in the credit information and debt management services sector in Australia and New Zealand.
The Australasian operations were bought out by the senior management group in August 2001. It was the first MBO of a wholly owned subsidiary in D&Bs history worldwide. AMP Capital Investors and management acquired a majority of the company with D&B retaining 2.5%. In April 2007 Carnegie Wylie & Co acquired AMP Capital Investors's interest. Management and D&B retaining its shareholding.
Strategies for future growth include developing DBAs commercial and consumer credit referencing business; expanding its receivables management outsourcing business; maintaining its lead in the development of unique credit and risk scoring products; and developing new products specifically tailored to the Australasian market.
D&B helps customers to maximise their cash flow by optimising their receivables cycle. Through integrated solutions we enable customers to assess risk, make informed decisions and predict the future. Backed by the largest database in the world with information on 90 million businesses, over 2.8 million of which are located in Australia and New Zealand.
D&B provides a range of credit services, including debt collection and recovery, receivable management outsourcing, credit reporting and credit scoring decisioning tools, Consumer Credit Bureau and business marketing information services.
D&B throughout its 166 year history has maintained an impeccable profile in the business community world - wide and is dedicated to protecting our strong brand and market presence.
http://dnb.com.au/
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER D&B INDIA
D&B is the leading provider of business-to-business credit, marketing, purchasing, collection services and decision-support services in India and worldwide.
Risk Management Solutions: Risk Management Solutions help you make more confident decisions, accelerate cash flow and monitor performance.
Business Information Report: is the most popular Dun & Bradstreet product. It is available on millions of establishments worldwide. It attempts to help improve your understanding of a prospective client or supplier by providing you with D&B's unique PAYDEX Score and D&B Rating to help predict, which prospects will pay slowly or not at all. Factual information on the existence, operations, financial condition, managements experience, line of business, facilities and locations of the prospect. Special events, as well as any suits, liens, judgments or previous/pending bankruptcies. Banking relationship and accountants. Parent company, affiliated concerns, subsidiaries, branches and divisions, referenced with name and D&B D-U-N-S Number
V I P Reports: D&B's VIP Report can help you reduce risk on larger exposure transactions, and make more informed decisions regarding:
Competition
Merger/ acquisition candidates
New major vendors
The VIP Report provides a personalized analysis of all the information on a company available to D&B, complete with historical and projected trends of the company and its industry. With the VIP Report, you get the benefit of individual consultation with a D&B analyst on the account for one full year. Just tell us the specific information you need for your decision on the account, and a D&B analyst will handle all the research and recommendations.
C-CAM: Customer Credit Assessment Model: D&Bs Customer Credit Assessment Model is designed specifically for the Indian business environment, customized to meet your companys specific credit risk assessment needs. It is based on a detailed assessment of your customers/ dealers financial and non-financial parameters such as financial position, operational performance, sales, employee size, number of years in existence and management quality.
Sales and Marketing Solutions: Sales & Marketing Solutions help you locate new business partners and identify new prospects and optimize relationships with existing customers. D&B Direct Mailing Services. These services enable you to execute focused direct mailing campaigns that are tailored to your product/ service offerings.
D&B Lead Generation: D&B Indias tele-marketing team helps you generate sales leads for your products/ services and qualify them. Lead Generation campaigns are usually deployed as a follow-up to Direct Mailing exercises, though they can also be used on a stand-alone basis. These services are also widely used to generate attendance at company-sponsored seminars, symposia and other events.
D&B Data Build Solutions: D&B Indias dedicated call centres enable you to build customized data about your prospects through tele-research. This customized data allows you to tailor-make your offering to prospects, enhancing conversion rates.
Export Marketing Solutions: D&Bs Export Marketing Solutions help you find overseas buyers for your products and services. D&B USA/UK Importer Data
D&B Business Marketing Solutions: D&Bs global database consists of 83 million companies spread over 200 countries. D&B can assist you in identifying potential buyers in these countries through its Business Marketing Solutions.
D&B D-U-N-S Number: Have you obtained a D&B D-U-N-S Number for your business? A D&B D-U-N-S Number is a unique nine-digit sequence recognised as the universal standard for identifying and keeping track of 83 million businesses worldwide.
Data Consultancy Services: Data Consultancy Services help you to Estimate Aggregate demand for your products and services, Enhance the value of internal databases by appending valuable D&B data.
Market Sizing Models: D&B Indias Statistical Modeling Group (SMG) develops and deploys customized demand estimation models that provide insights into the aggregate size of a market or segment for your products/ services.
Database Rationalization:
You can unlock the value of your internal atabases using D&B Indias Database Management Services. Also called Data Rationalisation Services, these services help cleanse, de-duplicate and integrate your companys internal databases. Database Management Services also help to enhance the value of internal databases by appending accurate and updated D&B data. These services help unleash the power of your companys data to make better decisions and maximise performance.
About D&B Financial Education Solutions:
D&B Financial Education solutions are designed to help businesses create and improve their competitive edge. D&B FES have helped thousands of executives globally to excel, grow and succeed. At D&B, we continually track global industry trends, technology developments and the latest learning and knowledge transfer techniques to ensure the highest possible quality of program contents and delivery. In brief, we offer the preferred training solutions that can battle the fast-changing business environment and achieve business objectives, match specific corporate requirements, and human resources plans. D&B FES have been effective across the world and markets, irrespective of the level of development of the markets. For example, D&B Education Solutions are as keenly used in advanced markets such as Australia and Canada, as they are in emerging markets such as China.
Seminars, Workshops and Conferences: Executive seminars, workshops and conferences offer excellent opportunities in facilitating the exchange of information and knowledge among executives. They also serve as a valuable ground for business networking by participants. D&B conducts seminars, workshops and conferences on a wide variety of subjects in the financial management space. These seminars and workshops are led by acknowledged domain experts.
http://www.dnb.co.in
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER D&B KOREA
D&B Korea which was established through alliance with global leading companies is Korea's largest commercial credit bureau. It has been contributing to the advancement of corporate credit information market by strengthening existing corporate information services and adopting aggressive marketing by developing transaction brokerage service and diverse advanced solutions.
Founded in October 2002 by the alliance between NICE, D&B International, USA and Japa's Tokyo Shoko Research, D&B Korea has been emerging as Korea's largest Commercial Credit Bureau.
Taking advantage of D&B's database regarding credit information on 81 million firms of 214 countries and system operation know-how and experiences in credit valuation of NICE, D&B Korea has been providing world-class corporate credit information and developing credit risk management, sales management and e-Business solutions.
Meanwhile, it is committed to contributing to the growth of domestic Commercial Credit Bureau through a wide range of credit information, transaction brokerage and customer support services.
http://eng.nice.co.kr
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER EQUIFAX
Equifax empowers businesses and consumers with information they can trust. A global leader in information solutions, we leverage one of the largest sources of consumer and commercial data, along with advanced analytics and proprietary technology, to create customized insights that enrich both the performance of businesses and the lives of consumers.
Customers have trusted Equifax for over 100 years to deliver innovative solutions with the highest integrity and reliability. Businesses large and small rely on us for consumer and business credit intelligence, portfolio management, fraud detection, decisioning technology, marketing tools, and much more. We empower individual consumers to manage their personal credit information, protect their identity, and maximize their financial well-being.
Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Equifax Inc. employs approximately 7,000 people in 15 countries through North America, Latin America and Europe. Equifax is a member of Standard & Poors (S&P) 500 Index. Our common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EFX.
Equifax is a registered trademark of Equifax Inc., Atlanta, Georgia. All rights reserved.
EQUIFAX COMMERCIAL INFORMATION SOLUTIONS BRINGS NEW ACCURACY AND TRUST TO BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
Going far beyond self reported data, we integrate trade credit history, financial payment history, business demographics and organizational insight. Access to better information sheds new light on credit worthiness, business viability, potential prospects and more.
Risk: Daily, you deal with dozens of commercial credit issues. To protect your company from financial losses, you need confidence that the credit decisions you make are the right ones. With extensive commercial credit data available from Equifax, you're prepared every day to objectively weigh the risks versus the rewards. With the right tools to evaluate risk, you've made the big step from guesswork to objective, fact-based decisions for any commercial credit situation.
Marketing: Marketers are playing a much larger role in driving growth for organizations and must become adept at uncovering exciting marketing opportunities and delivering a significant amount of new leads. Equifax can offer you a competitive edge with a suite of marketing services designed specifically for business-to-business marketers. We can help you assess your position in the market, set new marketing strategies and develop targeted prospect lists to increase response rates and return on investment for marketing campaigns. We can also help you to optimize your marketing activity with outsourced solutions that help provide key insights into your target segments and automation tools to speed the delivery of your marketing messages to those target segments.
Master Data Management: Recognizing that enterprise-wide supplier and customer visibility is a key requirement for effective decision making, Equifax Data Management Services offers best-in-class technology and a proprietary data match verification process that allow you to dynamically manage your supplier and customer information to reduce supply costs and increase revenue. Equifax also offers outsourced, hosted marketing databases for those clients who wish to leverage external expertise and technology to optimally manage their valuable data assets.
http://www.equifax.com
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER HELLASTAT S.A. GREECE
Hellastat possesses the essential experience, know-how, systems and human resources in order to provide value added products and services. The company operates in the areas of business information & decision support systems.
It is the only company in Greece that uses the XBRL standard and to hold the largest database of business information for more than 800.000 firms and 150 industries that cover the full spectrum of the economic activity in Greece and the Balkans.
HELLASTAT provides custom made products & services through the following:
- On-line Business Information through the portals http://www.imentor.eu and www. bbi.gr where our customer can find Company Profiles, Credit Reports, Industry Reports, Marketing Lists and create tailor-made reports (Data-Build Service).
- Strategic Industry Reports & Analyses
- Decision Support Solution Systems
- Risk & Transactions Management
- Customer, Supplier & Investor Finding & Valuation
Hellastat is a strategic partner of Standard & Poor's Risk Solutions and of Thomson-Reuters plc, the largest information and news provider. Hellastat is also a member of EADP (European Association of Database & Directories Publishers) and is certified by Lloyd's Register for the quality assurance process of providing information and relative services.
http://www.hellastat.gr/
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER HUAXIA D&B
Huaxia Credit International and D&B have announced in September of 2007 the creation of a joint venture, which is expected to create the largest commercial credit information company in China in terms of revenue and the size of the China database.
By leveraging its DUNSRightTM process, D&B is expecting to generate more value added from an expanded China data base. To have a local partner with good Guanxi is an excellent move, which will provide D&B with a considerable competitive edge over local and foreign competition.
Huaxia International Credit Group was founded in August 1993. It is headquartered in Beijing, has subsidiaries, branch companies and offices in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing and Changping District of Beijing respectively. The group consists of member companies including Huaxia International Credit Consulting Co., Ltd., Huaxia International Market Research Co., Ltd., Huaxia International Consumer Credit Consulting Co., Ltd. and Huaxia Account Receivable Management Co., Ltd. The group has an International Business Division, Credit Management Consulting Division and other business divisions. Huaxia Credit is a leading provider of business information and credit management services in China. By leveraging advanced information technologies, an experienced work force, extensive reporting network and dynamic databases, Huaxia Credit provides domestic and overseas business credit reports, sales leads, market research reports, consumer credit reports, database marketing, consulting services to businesses, insurance companies, multinationals, commercial banks, government departments in and outside China and has gained national and international recognition. Huaxia Credit is managed by its Chairman and cofounder Dr. Cao Xiaoning, an energetic entrepreneur who committed himself in 1993 to the pioneering task of promoting credit risk management in China. He is a well known personality at international credit information industry conferences and has become a leading authority on credit management and information services in China.
D&B is a leading global provider of business and credit information.
http://www.dnb.com
http://www.huaxiacredit.com
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER SINOTRUST
About Sinotrust
Sinotrust is a leading supplier of marketing solutions and credit solutions in China.
Sinotrust collects, analyzes and manages information about markets, consumers and businesses to provide marketing research, business information, consulting and database marketing services through integration of information, services and technology. Sinotrust products and services help make better marketing and credit decisions and develop profitable customer relationships.
Over 80% of the Fortune 500 companies operating in China are using different products and services of ours. Sinotrust employs about 1,000 people in our offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
At the beginning of 2007, Experian, the global leader in providing information, analytical tools and marketing services, made a strategic investment in Sinotrust with both capital and know-how. The investment will greatly improve our service capabilities.
Key Data About Sinotrust
- Market leader in providing marketing research services in China, with annual completion of about 600 ad-hoc marketing research projects
- China's largest supplier of automotive marketing solutions with accumulated completion of about 1,500 marketing research, marketing consulting and database marketing projects
- China's largest supplier of company credit information with accumulated production of about 600,000 credit reports
- China's first supplier of online credit information, covering about 300,000 companies
- Market leader in providing database marketing services in China with yearly completion of over 200 projects
- Maintaining China's largest database of update business information with coverage of more than 20 million institutions
To view Sinotrust's business profile click on the attachment
Address: 7-8/F, C&W Mansion, 14 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100016, China
Contact Person: Lucy WANG
Tel: (8610) 5926 7785
Fax:(8610) 5867 1858
Email: wanghongyuan@sinotrust.cn
Website: http://www.sinotrust.cn
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER TINUBU SQUARE
Tinubu Square is the leading independent company specialized in designing, implementing and managing innovative solutions for Credit Insurance, and Credit Risk Management, dedicated to financial institutions and more specifically credit insurance companies.
Tinubu Square combines a state-of-the-art technology platform and a team of internationally recognized experts in Credit Insurance.
Tinubu Squares platform operates under an ASP model and is based on following modules:
- Policy holder web interface (credit limit management, buyers portfolio management, statistics production)
- Policy holder notifications (decisions, reductions, cancellations, daily report on limit changes)
- Risk assessment (scoring system available on 6 European countries, manual risk underwriting services, buyer assessment module individual limit, aggregated exposure-)
- Risk information (connectors in place with various information providers over Europe, risk monitoring)
- Receivables financing interface (invoice and payment information management, indemnity and collection monitoring, web interface with banks.)
- Policy management module (policy terms and conditions monitoring, insureds access profiles, brokers profile)
- Commercial underwriting engine enabling to set automatically and on-line premium rate and policy terms from the policyholders profile, based on algorithms, industry standards and the credit insurers strategy.
Tinubu Square is already active in Asia and expects substantial growth for its technology platform in Asian markets. Tinubu Square was founded in 2000 and resides in Paris, France.
http://www.tinubusquare.com/en/index.html
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER TOKYO SHOKO RESEARCH LTD.
TOKYO SHOKO RESEARCH, LTD. (TSR) was established in the 19th century(1892)
as the first credit reporting agency in Japan.
Since then, for over 100 years, TSR has been supporting business scenes in Japan from the standpoint of professional corporate analysis. Over a century experience enables us to have a nationwide network and abundant corporate data. With these advantages, TSR plays a key role in the 21st century.
Reliable data of TSR is a key to success in the business in/with Japan.TSR will be a guide for your successful voyage. TSR strives to provide the best business information of Japanese business.
Products & Services: TSR specializes in credit reporting and information database on Japanese businesses. In 2000, TSR acquired exclusive sales/marketing rights of D&B Business Information Report and related products for the Japanese market.
The TSR REPORT is a set of comprehensive credit information collected through interview and investigation by our professional reporters in 88 branch offices throughout Japan. On the business-to-business transaction scenes, accurate and timely information is critical to credit risk management and the TSR REPORT supports business decisions. English report is also made available upon request.
Database Services: TSR provides business information collected by our own professional reporters through various media to meet your needs. It is useful for such activities as sales and marketing or business training. A wide range of product delivery method is available including access through mobile phone data network.
Internet Services: In January 1999, TSR launched tsr-van2 an Internet-based business information services. This service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and the tsr-van2 databese of 1.6 million Japanese business records is kept up-to-date through daily maintenance. Business profiles, financial data, bankruptcy information and detailed credit information are all readily accessible via the Internet.
Business Failure News: TSR publishes numerous versions of the Business Failure News in 68 offices. These publications are unique in that they have the longest history in Japan and a version is tied closely with a local market. The list of those who have account receivables is of particular importance for predicting 2nd and 3rd layers of potential bankruptcy. This accurate and precise data is highly rated by many companies, government offices,and the mass media as the base data for further analysis.
Risk Score (TSR/D&B Joint Product): Will this business be operating one year from now?
Risk Score assesses the level of risk of your customers through a statistic method. The score is calculated using TSR's extensive database and D&B's, predictive modeling know-how by analyzing data of previous bankruptcy cases. The Risk Score helps you to make credit decisions faster and consistent.
Marketing Services: TSR provides solutions for your marketing strategy like estimation of customers purchase trend, recognition of competitors activity, analysis of effective sales promotion through market scale assessment, market share research and so on.
Publications: TSR sells Japanese books ranging from "TOSHO SHINYO-ROKU," a leading directory on Japanese businesses, to the books taking advantage of long established TSR's financial analysis capability, as well as English books published by D&B to the customers in Japan.
Company Profile: Since its inception in 1892, TSR has grown into one of the largest companies of business information database on Japanese businesses.
Alliance with D&B: D&B is the leading company in the information industry with the largest database & broadcast network in the world. D&B's information covers 100 mil. companies from over 200 countries (as of September, 2005). TSR's business information is distributed through D&B Worldwide Network.
http://www.tsr-net.co.jp/english/
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER VEDA ADVANTAGE
VEDA Advantage is Australasia's leading provider of business intelligence services and solutions. Through the integration of data sets, analytics and technologies, Baycorp Advantage provides solutions which enhance and integrate with the processes our clients use to identify, select and optimise the value of relationships with their customers.
Our data driven solutions assist our customers to enhance value through improved efficiencies to customer acquisition, the ability to implement value and risk base pricing, portfolio risk management and when necessary, recovery of customer value.
The Group's activities are primarily focused in Australia and New Zealand. The Group has established strategic relationships with international organisations enabling the Group greater and more timely access to developments in the credit information industry and improved access to leading developments in relevant technology and analytics.
The Group has also, over recent years, established interests in a number of Asian countries, particularly in Singapore and Malaysia, and more recently in the Middle East. These strategic interests position the Group to better support the needs of, and to remain relevant to, its customers in an increasingly globalised market.
The Group comprises three principal business units:
Solutions Group (BSG) - offers a range of products, services and unique, dynamic data to help organisations make more informed and profitable customer management decisions. Over many years, clients across many industries have benefited from engaging BSG to compliment or supplement existing customer management strategies and structure. With expertise in both direct marketing and credit scoring, BSG has consistently delivered projects and products to optimise customer value and minimise customer credit risk.
Business Information Services (BIS) - is a unique business and is the principal value driver of Baycorp Advantage. It is the clear market leader in the consumer credit reporting and identity verification markets in Australia and New Zealand and is continuing to gain market share and play a leading role as a major provider of commercial credit information services.
Collection Services (BCS) - is a full service value recovery business operating in the Australasian debt collection services and purchase debt ledger markets ("PDL").
"Baycorp" is virtually a household name in New Zealand, and is almost synonymous with debt collection. From its origins in Lower Hutt near Wellington in the 1950s,
Baycorp Holdings Limited grew to become the major provider of receivables management services in New Zealand and Baycorp Advantage remains the largest supplier of these services in New Zealand today.
In Australia, the history of Veda Advantage in the receivables management industry is more recent, emerging from a joint venture between Data Advantage Limited, Baycorp Holdings Limited and Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 1999. Baycorp Advantage acquired the interests of the Commonwealth Bank in this venture in 2001. In Australia, Baycorp Advantage is one of the leading providers of receivables management services, with the major portion of Australian revenues in BCS now earned from PDLs.
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MEET OUR FULL MEMBER VEDA ADVANTAGE - VIEW SAMPLE REPORT
Veda Advantage is Australasia's leading provider of business intelligence services and solutions. Through the integration of data sets, analytics and technologies, Veda Advantage provides solutions which enhance and integrate with the processes our clients use to identify, select and optimise the value of relationships with their customers.
For further information contact: http://www.vedaadvantage.com
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MEET OUR MEMBER BOL - BUSINESS ONLINE
Business Online Public Company Limited, BOL, provides full-service business verification support: company's information search, creditability check, business analysis and debts collection. Established in 1995, BOL has been cooperating with Department of Business Development, Ministry of Commerce to provide basic information on more than 720,000 companies registered in Thailand.
Users can search and check marketing and credit information of their target companies via http://www.bol.co.th, the largest business portal website in the country ready to offer correct and reliable information.
In 1998, BOL has expanded its network to international level through a partnership with Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) the world's leader in providing business credit information.
Equipped with more than 160 years of experiences plus database of 90 million companies in 214 countries worldwide.
The partnership, hence, enhances BOL potentiality as a leading business information services provider in Thailand . With a complete and sophisticated database, in addition to afore said services available to customers, BOL is now capable of providing thorough analysis on companies, not only those registered in Thailand but around the world.
In 2000, BOL has entered into credit bureau business as one of the major shareholders and a technological provider to the credit bureau.
The Company aims to be a leading provider of business decision solution, which offers data analysis and verified information to improve its clients' decision-making process. The Company continuously develops and improving its existing database and online computer system, as well as searches for information from additional sources. In order to provide the highest possible benefit to clients in their decision-making, the Company intends to provide value-added products and services, i.e. more complex analysis and verification of data which will focus on reducing risk and increasing business opportunities of clients. Tentative projects of the Company include developing a database management system and offering new types of information services with the aim to expand its market to the international level.
http://www.bol.co.th
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MEET OUR MEMBER D&B
About D&B:
D&B (NYSE:DNB) is the world's leading source of business information and insight, enabling companies to Decide with Confidence for 165 years. D&B's global commercial database contains more than 110 million business records. The database is enhanced by a proprietary DUNSRight Quality Process, which transforms the enormous amount of data D&B collects daily into decision-ready insight. Through the D&B Worldwide Network - an unrivaled alliance of D&B and leading business information providers around the world - customers gain access to the world's largest and highest quality global commercial business information database.
D&B partners with many of the world's largest and most successful enterprises as well as mid-size companies and entrepreneurial start-ups. Customers use our Risk Management Solutions to mitigate credit risk, increase cash flow and drive increased profitability; our Sales & Marketing Solutions to increase revenue from new and existing customers; our E-Business Solutions to convert prospects into clients faster by enabling business professionals to research companies, executives and industries; and our Supply Management Solutions to generate ongoing savings through supplier consolidation and to protect their businesses from supply chain disruption and serious financial, operational and regulatory risk.
D&B Asia Pacific manages a range of subsidiarys: Huaxia D&B, China, D&B Taiwan, D&B Hong Kong and a network of affiliated partner companies throughout the Asia Pacific Rim, South Asia, South East Asia and the Middle East.
Insightful Information:
D&B is the leading provider of business information for risk management, sales and marketing and supply management decisions worldwide. Companies rely on D&B to provide the insight they need to help build profitable, quality business relationships with their customers, suppliers and business partners.
DUNSRight
The D&B brand has stood for high quality business information for 165 years. The D&B database covers over 110 million businesses globally with a daily update of more than 1.5 million times. Using our DUNSRight Process, D&B collects, aggregates, edits, and verifies data from thousands of sources daily. The foundation of DUNSRight is quality assurance, which includes over 2,000 separate automated checks plus many manual ones to ensure that our data meets our high quality standards. In addition, five quality drivers - Global Data Collection, Entity Matching, D-U-N-S? Number, Corporate Linkage, and Predicative Indicators - work sequentially to collect and enhance the data. The output of this extensive process is high-quality business insight that our customers rely on to Decide with Confidence.
The Most Comprehensive Global Database of Its Kind:
D&B's products and services are drawn from a global database of over 100 million companies. We gather business information in 214 countries around the world, in 95 languages or dialects, covering 181 currencies. To help ensure the accuracy, completeness, timeliness and cross-border consistency of our information, we use sophisticated data collection tools and update our database nearly 1.5 million times a day.
The Value of the D&B D-U-N-S Number
The exclusive nine-digit D&B D-U-N-S Number, assigned to each business location in our global database, is widely used as a tool for identifying, organizing and consolidating information about businesses. Companies worldwide use it to link information about suppliers, customers and trading partners, providing them a more complete picture of risks and opportunities in their business relationships.
About D&B China
D&B established a presence in 1994 to focus on providing the vast and growing Chinese business community with solutions in Risk Management, Marketing, and Business Education that matches international business standards and practices. D&B's presence in China includes our headquarters in Shanghai and branch office in Beijing and Guangzhou. Over the past 12 years, D&B China has provided information solutions to Foreign Invested Enterprises, Listed Companies, Import & Export Trading companies, and Private Enterprises throughout the country. We maintain and update a China business database of 1,300,000 Chinese companies.
With the introduction of D&B China Risk Index, an advanced risk management tool - RAM, D&B China has positioned itself not only as a leading business information provider, but also a consultative business partner bringing the trust, expertise, insight and tools to help businesses make more confident business decisions that map against the vast opportunities as China opens to global trading opportunities.
In late 2006 D&B China merged with Huaxi Credit to form a joint venture: Huaxia D&B
For more information see: Meet Our Member Huaxia D&B.
http://www.dnb.com
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MEET OUR MEMBER D&B NICE INC. KOREA
NICE was founded in September 1986 in a bid to help credit-based society take root early. It is the Korea's largest and sole credit Information company handling both credit rating and credit information.
NICE has been leading the establishment of domestic credit infrastructure by carrying out a wide range of business activities: credit rating business which timely offer reliable information to investors based on know-how and advanced methods accumulated since its foundations and highly qualified specialists in the industry; credit information business targeting Korea's representative Credit Bureau based on Korea's largest database on corporations and individuals; asset management business which effectively manage customers' accounts receivable and assets based on stable methods and optimized system; research business offering information necessary for corporate management strategies and establishment of tactics to customers. With competent specialists of abundant working experiences, NICE is ready to leap forward to become a comprehensive credit information corporation leading market growth and changes with the 'NICE VISION 2006; Trusted Market Leader.'
http://nice.co.kr
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MEET OUR MEMBER TransUnion
Company
For more than 30 years, TransUnion has been a global provider of information and decision-processing services, maintaining one of the largest databases of consumer credit information in the world. TransUnion leverages its role as facilitator to engage and educate consumers, building better relationships between businesses and consumers by improving accuracy, fraud protection, understanding, and trust to drive continued economic growth and consumer prosperity.
History
Established 1968, TransUnion later acquired the Credit Bureau of Cook County (CBCC), and in 1972 introduced the first online information system storage and retrieval data-processing system, called the TransUnion Credit Reporting Online Network Utility System (CRONUS).
Headquarters
TransUnion LLC
555 W. Adams Street
Chicago, IL 60661-3614
Locations
TransUnion LLC serves all 50 states through its own sales offices and independent credit bureaus. Currently TransUnion has a global network in place to serve business customers and consumers around the world with operations and affiliates in Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Thailand, Guatemala, Czech Republic, China, South Korea, Spain, Swaziland, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Financial
Privately held corporation
Media Contact
Clifton O'Neal
312-985-2540
coneal@transunion.com
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MEET OUR MEMBER WAND, Inc.
Since 1995, WAND has developed structured multi-lingual vocabularies with related tools and services to power precision search and classification applications on the internet. From our custom travel, jobs and skills, and medical taxonomies to our cornerstone Product and Service Taxonomy and Local Search Taxonomy, WANDs taxonomies are well-structured, deep, precise, and best in class.
In addition to licensing its taxonomies for integration into third party applications, WAND leverages its taxonomies internally to build precision horizontal and vertical online business directory applications. Powered by WAND directory applications have been matching buyers and seller on the internet since 1996. WAND serves customers on five continents.
WAND Product and Service Taxonomy
The WAND Taxonomy contains over 70,000 terms covering all major industries and is organized into an intuitive, easy-to-navigate poly-hierarchical structure. In addition to the natural language based product and service terms, there are over 1,300,000 associated attributes and attribute values for identifying products and services down to a catalog specification or SKU level. The taxonomy undergoes continual dynamic development based on user feedback in conjunction with specialized industry and customer requirements. The WAND Taxonomy is available in eleven languages and can be mapped to any existing product and service classification system.
WAND Local Search Taxonomy
Leveraging over a decade of development on the WAND Product and Service Taxonomy, the WAND Local Search Taxonomy enhances the results of local search style engines and portals on the Internet to eliminate failed searches. The WAND Local Search Taxonomy includes structured local search query terms and meta-data terminology covering nearly all of the queries that are entered by users in a local search environment. When this rich local search vocabulary is combined with advanced spell check and approximate match search technology, the result is that nearly any search will return a relevant result providing a satisfying experience for local search users and driving targeted business to local search advertisers. Best of all, the Local Search Taxonomy can work side by side with an existing local search platform to greatly improve the search without too much heavy lifting.
Powered by WAND Business Directories
Powered by WAND Business Directories use an advanced architecture built around the WAND B2B Taxonomy. WAND directory solutions provide a robust and intuitive search interface of any product and service or based data. Powered by WAND Directories are searchable in eleven languages and are fully customizable with multiple combinations of features and functionality to meet any customers needs. The platform can be adapted for use with other WAND Taxonomies or for use in an enterprise environment for vendor identification and electronic cataloging.
Why WAND Technologies Are Unique
Free text search on the Internet often returns results that are irrelevant and unsatisfying forcing the user to wade through pages of garbage in order to find the information she is looking for. Taxonomies built by WAND are developed with a focus on providing sophisticated structure to efficiently direct users to a targeted and relevant set of information each and every time. Each WAND taxonomy is revolutionary in its space for its depth, broad coverage, and precision terminology. WAND taxonomies can be integrated into enterprise class applications including, but not limited to: search and discovery, knowledge management, content management, document retrieval, and more. WAND is readily able to expand upon our existing taxonomies to create more robust vertical segments. With our existing expertise, WAND can develop custom taxonomies rapidly, cost effectively, and in multiple languages.
WAND, Inc. is the leading developer of online directory technologies. Powered by WAND directories are internet based directories that can generate revenue for its directory operator customers and provide savings to its enterprise customers by making assets such as suppliers fully accessible and available. The WAND Product and Service Taxonomy-based classification system, multiple-language capabilities, cross-network distribution, and rapid implementation are unique to the industry.
WAND's Target Markets
The WAND Taxonomy has been licensed by companies in the directory publishing, supply chain management, knowledge management, and e-commerce industries.
The Powered by WAND directory platform is ideal for yellow page companies, associations, banks, trading companies, chambers of commerce, trade promotion agencies, credit information providers, enterprise supplier directories, domain name directories, and any application where a robust system for classifying product and service based data in a structured and searchable environment is necessary.
http://www.wandinc.com
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MEET THE BIIA CHAIRMAN DAVID WORLOCK
David Worlock is a Cambridge History graduate who joined Thomson Reuters as a trainee in 1967, and subsequently worked in educational and academic publishing before managing Thomsons school-based publishing as Group Executive Publisher in the late 1970s. Between 1980-85 he was CEO of the pioneer development of EUROLEX, the UKs first online service for lawyers, subsequently acquired by Reed Elsevier in 1985. In that year he founded Electronic Publishing Services Ltd, a research and consultancy company based in London and New York which has worked alongside the digital content industry in developing strategies for products and markets in consumer and business sectors. Content environments have ranged from text to audio-visual, from online to wireless, from narrowband to broadband. Major projects included the development of Fish4 of which he was non-executive chairman for five years. Public consultancy work includes advisory services and projects for the European Commission, the Department of Trade and Industry, the British Library, QCA and the Soros Foundation.
During this period David served as non-executive director of Dorling Kindersley plc, prior to its acquisition by Pearson, and Book Data Ltd, which he co-founded, prior to its acquisition by VNU. He has also held a variety of non-executive posts, including Creature Labs (intelligent life-form games environments), and Panlok(DRM).For 25 years he has been a non-executive director of the international operations of the Bureau of National Affairs Inc. He was an advisory board member of Ingenta and Granville Baird. David was also Chairman of the Digital Content Forum, which formed a two-way conduit between the 36 UK information industry organizations in their dialogue with government on digital content issues. Other public appointments included his roles as a member of the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information (Cabinet Office) and as the independent commercial representative on the Content Advisory Board (Department for Education and Skills). He is a member of the Industry Advisory Board at the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies, Oxford Brookes University, and acted as publishing adviser to the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth at the University of Warwick. In 2004 he acted as Special Advisor to the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technologys enquiry on Science publishing.
In 2006 David and his colleagues sold Electronic Publishing Services to Outsell Inc., the California-based sector leader in information industry research and analysis . David now co-chairs and manages Outsells Executive Programs , in which some 120 industry CEOs and strategists meet in five councils on both sides of the Atlantic to look at the long and short term strategies which will need to be implemented to secure the future growth and profitability of the sector . He continues to speak and write widely on industry issues .
David has worked closely with industry trade associations. For five years he was chairman of the European Information Industry Association, and then of the Information Communication Industry Association. He has been a member of subcommittees of the Publishers Association, the Periodical Publishers Association and the Newspaper Society.He is currently an Advisory Board member at IFIS ( International Food Science Information Service ) and at ELIG ( the European Learning Industry Group ). Outside interests include a passion for rugby football ( he is a Gloucester supporter proud to be called a a one-eyed Shedhead), for history and literature, and for pig farming and the state of British agriculture.
To read more about David Worlock go to: http://www.davidworlock.com/home/
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MEET THE CREDIT RESEARCH FOUNDATION
The Credit Research Foundation is a nonprofit, research and educational organization with international reach. For nearly six decades our mission has been to advance the understanding, practice and development of technique and trends in business credit for the benefit of businesses worldwide by communicating the value of credit and receivables management. CRF promotes leadership and provides the link between education and practice. As a professional organization, CRF serves its diverse membership by recognizing excellence, promoting the exchange of information and fostering innovation.
CRF staff members conduct research, produce publications and provide programs and assessment products (benchmarking and other performance reference studies) to leaders of credit and accounts receivable in all sectors of business. Headquartered in Columbia, MD, with approximately 600 contributing members, the Foundation annually is in contact with more than 4,000 organizations - both public and private, including over half of the Fortune 500. At CRF, we recognize that financial skills and leadership development is crucial for individual and organizational success. Today, executives and managers must find creative solutions to complex challenges where the call for effective management is stronger than ever.
We are an internationally recognized resource for understanding and expanding the role of business credit. Through our programs, CRF has a significant impact on hundreds of business credit and financial leaders each year, while thousands view our publications and research material.
CRF's nonprofit status and mission give us unusual flexibility in a world where profits often drive or confine thinking, direction and action. We have the freedom to be objective, wary of short-term trends and motivated foremost by our mission - our substantial and sustained investment in the well being of our members. Although our work is always grounded in a strong foundation of research, we expand that research to demonstrate practical applications at our Forums and training sessions.
Credit Research Foundation
8840 Columbia 100 Parkway
Columbia, Maryland 21045
Phone: 410-740-5499
Fax: 410-740-4620
Http://www.crfonline.org
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OECD Statistics on Value of ICT
John Dryden, Deputy Director, Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry at OECD presented a Guide to Measuring the Information Society at UNCTADs Tenth Session of the Commission on Enterprise, Business Facilitation and Development in Geneva on February 23rd 2006
Dryden discussed the reasons for measuring ICT:
- Monitoring progress in creating information society and helping understand how ICTs impact positively on economic and social progress.
- Policy analysis and dialogue: allow governments to make informed policy decisions for using ICTs as a tool for social and economic development.
- Evidence is accumulating in developed countries, but lacking for developing countries.
- The need for collaboration with other partners: Partnership on Measuring ICT 4 D.
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POSITIVE DATA SHARING
The Political and Economic Research Council (PERC) is a non-partisan, non-profit policy institute devoted to research, public education, and outreach on public and economic policy matters. PERC works with both the public and private sector, harnessing the power of market forces and harmonizing them with a clear public interest in servicing the greater good.
The Australian Law and Reform Commission (ALRC) recently issued a report endorsing positive
credit information sharing in a manner consistent with the prescriptions made by PERC and Dun & Bradstreet Australia in 2005, when D&B invited PERC to partner with them on a national campaign to raise awareness about the consumer and economic benefits from credit reporting reform in Australia.
http://www.infopolicy.org
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POSITIVE DATA USE IN CREDIT REPORTING
Credit Information Industry welcomes Government decision that will increase competition and enhance responsible lending objectives
The announcement by the Commonwealth Government that they have accepted the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) recommendations to introduce comprehensive credit reporting has the potential to dramatically change consumer lending in Australia.
The Government has accepted ALRC recommendations to allow additional data elements to be included in consumer credit reports, which will provide lenders with a clear picture of a borrowers' true financial position.
D&B Australia managing director Christine Christian has been working relentlessly together with users of credit information and industry experts to bring about this important change. BIIA expresses its gratitude to its Australian members for their effort on behalf of the industry.
To read the press release of BIIA MEMBER D&B Australia click on the attachment.
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PRICING STRATEGIES
Which pricing strategies address falling demand in an economic downturn? The pundits generally say wake up, pay closer attention to customers, and be more targeted in your pricing. Good ideas certainly, but what should you do specifically? Which price initiatives do, or do not, work?
From working with clients in industries which entered the recession early (e.g. print media, construction and commodity capital goods) we believe there are five key strategies, generally requiring intelligent use of tools, to combat falling revenues. The key to success, in all cases, is not to assume that market-facing management becomes magically smarter. You may need tools to change behaviors.
So, the answers occur in strategy + tool combinations. Most of them focus on understanding the customer buying decision, which is the driver of price sensitivity. Know the decision, and you can optimize your pricing.
To read the full story click on the attachment
Abbey Road Associates is a business consulting firm specialized in pricing and pricing strategy. We offer highly evidenced strategic and tactical pricing recommendations to companies across a wide range of industries. Recent assignments have been in the entertainment, telecom, computing, information services, software, consumer products and transportation industries. They have focused on new price structures, new product pricing, pricing processes, discounting reduction/improvement, new market penetration, bundle configuration and pricing, and countering price attacks.
http://www.abbeyroadassociates.com/
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PRICING STRATEGIES FOR CONTENT COMPANIES
BIIA member Abbey Road Associates published a book that provides excellent insights into pricing and branding strategies.
In the endless quest to boost your bottom line, youve done it all: re-engineering, downsizing, new purchasing strategies, TQM, CRM, automation, new sales channels and technologies.
The problem is, everyone else has done it, too. And while these once-innovative techniques may still be helping your organization to hold its own, they are long past delivering the impact. Excitement and competitive advantage they initially offered. Smart manager and smart companies are already asking, whats next? How do we stay ahead?
In Winning the Profit Game, the authors offer a simple but powerful solution to keep improving the bottom line, your organization must now shift its sights and focus on growing the top-line. They also introduce two fundamental tools for producing top line growth: price and brand.
Authors: Robert G. Docters; Michael R. Reopel, Jeanne-Mey Sun and Stephen M. Tanny. The book Winning the Profit Game was published in 2004 by McGraw-Hill
The authors can be reached at http://www.abbeyroadassociates.com/
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PRICING STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS
Now that you have a product or service ready for market, how can you use price to attract the attention of buyers, and propel them to buy it?
Two factors determine the success of an introductory pricing plan: knowledge and timing.
To read the full story click on the attachment
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PRIVACY AND RESPONSIBLE LENDING
Responsible use of consumer information yields efficiencies and growth accross a large number of sectors.
Overly-restrictive data (privacy) regimes are often worst of both worlds:
- No additional privacy protections
- Enforced inefficiencies such as subjective credit granting
Information provided courtesey of Dr. Michael A. Turner, President and Senior Scholar; Political and Economic Research Council
tunrer@infopolicy.org
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PRIVACY LEGISLATION IN AUSTRALIA
Veda Advantage Submission on ALRC Discussion Paper 72
Veda Advantage strongly supports urgent credit reporting reform. Australian borrowers and
lenders are entitled to the protection of
- the best information
- stronger consumer protection
- flexible regulation
The current law is widely disliked because of its heavy prescription. Veda believes that the drafting approach to credit reporting regulation should have the following features:
- identification of harm to be prevented
- focus on outcome
- avoidance of prescription of process.
To read the entire paper please click on the attachment
http://www.vedaadvantage.com
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PRIVACY LEGISTLATION REFORM IN AUSTRALIA
The best argument for credit reporting reform is economic.
http://www.vedaadvantage.com
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PRIVACY RIGHTS AND POLICY WRONGS
The attached paper highlights a potential threat to a new model for economic development posed by European-style data privacy regulatory regimes. Specifically, it is argued that information Led Development (ILD) holds many advantages for emerging markets as a mechanism for growth, and that the European Union's current approach to data privacy may harm this model.
To read the full story, please click on the attachment.
The article is provided courtesey Michael A. Turner Ph.D. and Peter A. Johnson Ph.D. The iNFORMATION policy institute
http://www.infopolicy.org
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PRIVACY RULES & CREDIT INFORMATION
The digital data revolution has generated an explosion in the amount of personal information that is captured and shared across organisations and geographical borders creating an urgent need for stronger Australian data governance standards, Veda Advantage said today.
Veda Advantage (formerly Baycorp Advantage) is the largest custodian of credit-related information in Australia and New Zealand and a leading provider of business intelligence tools. The company has a depth of experience managing sensitive data, and has worked within the boundaries of the Australian Privacy Act longer than any other company.
Veda Advantage has recently released its submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) Privacy Review, currently underway, and highlighted the following issues and key recommendations in the attached document.
For further information contact: Fleur Brown, +61 41 9270 863 fleur.brown@vedaadvantage.com
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PROSPECTING
Getting your foot in the door: Seven steps to successful cold-calling
"The problem with my salespeople is they're not cold calling enough!" That's the concern Jeff Mowatt of JC Movatt Seminars Inc. hears most often from sales managers and business owners when he speak at conventions on how to boost sales. Yet when he examines their cold calling strategies, he generally finds they're ill conceived.
Decision-makers in most organizations soon grow weary of the large number of salespeople phoning them. So if you're not well trained when you cold call, I guarantee that you'll face a lot of rejection.
On the other hand, when you're professionally trained, cold calling is easy and tremendously profitable. Here are seven steps to boost your cold calling success.
Seven steps to successful cold-calling was provided courtesy of Jeff Mowatt. To read the full story click on the attachment.
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PROSPECTING
Consistent prospecting is vital to a sales professionals success and the success of the whole sales organization. If youre not paying proper attention to the sales that need to be closed, the sales that need further development, and the new opportunities available to be plucked from the universe, your funnels health will decline and youll never make your quota.
The most successful sales professionals are those who are really efficient at prospecting. All activities within the sales process are important, but to reduce how low you go into the valleys of your sales cycle, prospecting must be a top priority - right behind closing business. You cant leave it on the back burner.
Good prospecting techniques can impact your number of qualified leads and directly translate into increased revenue and a higher commission check. Because its such a crucial part of the sales process, how do you make sure you are identifying those prospects that will produce a win for both your organizations?
To read the full white paper click on the attachment or get your own copy from Hoovers: http://www.hoovers.com/business-information/--pageid__16847--/global-hoov-index.xhtml?cm_ven=Email&cm_cat=ClosedLost&cm_pla=Segmentation&cm_ite=Grp3
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PUBLIC SECTOR / PRIVATE SECTOR RELATIONSHIPS
The working group PUBLIC CULTURE of the EU-project EPSIPLUS discussed on 10th of April in Prague the differences between public and private
culture in terms of commercial re-use of PSI.
All presentations are downloadable under the EVENTS section: http://www.epsiplus.net
Speakers from Latvia, Czech Republic, Switzerland and other EU-countries
discussed following subjects: "In how far do public dataholders benefit from granting PSI re-use to the private sector?"
"Or can the relationship between public and private sector be defined primarily as monodirectional one:
- Each civil servant uses in his daily life private re-use products
based on PSI (e.g. car navigation)
- What is the benefit for their public sector? Did they start to
re-license private re-use services from the private sector?
(bidirectional relationship)"
Gerhard K. Wagner
Epsiplus Analyst
gkwagner@via.at>gkwagner@via.at
ePSIplus is a Thematic Network, funded by the eContentplus programme, to support the implementation of the European Directive on Public Sector Information (PSI) Re-use, in the period leading up to its review in 2008.
The ePSIplus portal provides access to a wide range of knowledge emerging in this field, across all EU member states, of key interest to public and private sector stakeholders, together with an opportunity to engage in debate on key issues.
In this way, ePSIplus is setting out to provide a one- stop shop for key information on PSI re-use across Europe including news, reports, legal cases, good practices and benchmarking on the progress of legislation by means of our country scorecard, all searchable by thematic area, country and free text terms.
Register on the site (top right hand corner of web pages) to receive the regular ePSIplus newsletter, as well as to access site facilities such as new content notifications for news items as they are posted. Registration also provides access to interactive dialogue on PSI issues via the ePSIplus forum.
The information on the portal is freely available for browsing, downloading and re-use, unless otherwise stated.
http://www.epsiplus.net
To read more, please click on the attachment.
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PUBLIC SECTOR INFORMATION (PSI) - GERMANY
Germany is on its way to become a role model for electronic Public Sector Information availability and compliance through new initiatives taken by the Ministry of Justice and the Bundesanzeiger Verlag, publisher of the official Federal Gazette. The focus is on migrating traditional printed content into electronic format deliverable in various forms over the Internet.
Transparency has always taken a back seat in Germany as businesses were notoriously non-compliant in filing balance sheets. This is about to change. The intent of the Justice Ministry to enforce compliance in the filing of financial statements will eventually help to overcome negative attitudes towards disclosure, mandatory and voluntary. Thus the rigorous enforcement of compliance will be a significant step towards greater transparency in Germany.
In the case of Germany the primary sources for public sector information was the print based Federal Gazette and value added information providers had to contact registers, which were dispersed to more than 400 localities. Therefore, the recent initiatives to migrate from print to a centralized system to deliver structured register data is a significant improvement in public sector information availability. Furthermore, the creation of an electronic database of structured financial statements and the ease of integrating such data in end-users systems can be regarded as a major milestone in public sector user friendliness and a significant improvement in transparency. Essentially the BDS is a public sector utility for transporting legal and register information to end-users. It is seeking partnerships to augment public data with value added data. It is also seeking partnerships with resellers, data aggregators and value added information providers.
To read the full story, please click on the attachment
Prepared by BIIA - Business Information Industry Association Asia Pacific Middle East Ltd, Hong Kong as part of its ongoing program to inform users of information, governments, regulators, members and the general public about the value of information in business decisions.
For further information contact Joachim C. Bartels info@biia.com
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PUBLIC SECTOR INFORMATION (PSI) - THAILAND
Public Sector Information in Asias developing countries is generally imperfect, ineffective and underdeveloped in terms of quality, reliability and electronic distribution. That has a negative impact on transparency; it impairs the granting of credit and retards economic growth.
Not so in Thailand, where a public sector / private sector initiative has made a vast difference in regard to the availability of reliable, timely and accurate business information with a substantial positive impact on transparency now level to those in developed countries.
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RATING AND CREDIT SCORING SERVICES IN TURKEY
Exporta's second annual Turkey Trade & Export Finance Forum in Istanbul (October 2007) was attended by over 120 delegates and received rave reviews from all participants. Dr. Selim Seval, CEO of Finar, Turkey provided a review of available rating and credit scoring services in Turkey, which included a distribution of current Turkish Risk Ratings.
It is interesting to note that 66% of companies rated in Turkey are in the high and average risk categories, 28% of which are in the high risk quartile.
Dr. Seval also stressed the need to support SMEs in Turkey and to train SMEs in practicing good risk behavior and to become good risk managers themselves. His comments are highlighted in the attached presentation.
http://www.finar.tr
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RATING COMPLEX STRUCTURED FINANCIAL PRODUCTS
Riskmetrics recently participated in a credit information services workshop in China sponsored by the People's Bank of China. The following is a summary recommendation on rating of Structured Finance Products.
Structured products are very complex and additional information is required to understand their credit risk profile:
- Portfolio effects (correlations) are very important. Correlation assumptions need to be disclosed together with sensitivity analysis
- Embedded leverage in the structure has to be well understood by investors
- Sensitivity of ratings changes with respect to model assumptions and credit scenarios would be helpful
Credit ratings only measure risk due to credit events, investors also need measures of mark-to-market and liquidity risk
Understanding the underlying securities is critical since securitization markets face information asymmetries that encourage lax lending:
- Originators often don't have incentives to perform strong due diligence on the underlying loans
- Loans with FICO scores of 620 or above were highly likely to be securitized. It has been shown that subsequent loan performance was worse for loans slightly above the 620 threshold compared with loans where the score was slightly below 620
Sponsors of structured products should disclose all relevant information to CRAs and as much information as possible to investors
- All CRAs should have access to the same information regardless of whether they are retained to rate a specific product
- Information about the structure and the pool of underlying assets should be made available in machine readable format.
To view the entire presentation please click on the attachment
Alan Laubsch, Riskmetrics
http://www.riskmetrics.com - asia@riskmetrics.com - Tel. +65 6826 9333
Disclaimer: The views in this presentation are that of the authors and may not necessarily reflect those of RiskMetrics Group.
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REGULATIONS - INDUSTRY SELF REGULATION
BIIA members subscribe to a code of conduct and to high quality standards.
To view the summary click on the attachment
To access the BIIA code of conduct click on the link: http://www.biia.com/code_of_conduct.php
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REGULATIONS - UNREASONABLE RESTRICTIONS
German Privacy and Data Protection advocates won a victory by pushing through legislation which curtails the use of modern credit management tools in the assessment of credit of consumers and small business owners.
The losers, however, will be consumers and small business owners they thought to protect, because the assessment of credit will again revert to subjectivity (involvement of people), rather objectivity driven by facts (positive and negative data) and scientifically proven modeling (scoring). The new Privacy and Data Protection Law (BDSG) becomes law on April 1, 2010
TO READ THE FULL STORY AND BIIA COMMENTS CLICK ON THE ATTACHMENT
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REGULATIONS - COMMERICAL CREDIT INFORMATION
BIIA conducted a survey on regulatory frameworks for commercial credit information in key countries and found that there no regulatory restrictions on commercial credit information.
The industry is largely self-regulating. BIIA members subscribe to a code of conduct and to high quality standards.
To view the summary click on the attachment
To access the BIIA code of conduct click on the link: http://www.biia.com/code_of_conduct.php
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REGULATIONS: AUSTRALIA ADOPTS COMPREHENSIVE CREDIT REPORTING
The credit information industry and BIIA welcomes the Australian government decision that will increase competition and enhance responsible lending objectives
The announcement by the Commonwealth Government that they have accepted the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) recommendations to introduce comprehensive credit reporting has the potential to dramatically change consumer lending in Australia.
The Government has accepted ALRC recommendations to allow additional data elements to be included in consumer credit reports, which will provide lenders with a clear picture of a borrowers true financial position.
To read the full press release of BIIA member D&B Australia click on the attachment
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REGULATORY CORNER - CHINA
CHINA LEVELS THE PLAYING FIELD FOR FINANCIAL INFORMATION PROVIDERS
China has committed to eliminate all the problems raised by the United States. China will: designate an independent regulator that will have no conflicts of interests with the companies it is regulating and will use a fair and transparent approach to licensinG:
- eliminate the requirement that U.S. companies must use an agent to do business;
- limit the regulator to requesting only information that is relevant to the regulatory function, ensure the confidentiality of that information, and protect against its misuse;
- confirm the rights of U.S. companies to set up local operations in China;
- treat U.S. companies at least as well as it treats Chinese companies.
Context: The United States filed a WTO dispute against China challenging the dual role of Xinhua News Agency as a regulator and operator of financial information services.
Source Press Release: Office of the United States Trade Representative
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REGULATORY EXAMPLES CREDIT INFORMATION
National Credit Act No 34 of 2005 of South Africa
The purpose of the National Credit Act is to provide a credit market in South Africa that is fair, transparent, accessible, responsible, competitive, sustainable, effective and protect consumers. TransUnion is a registered credit bureau with the National Credit Regulator.
To view the Draft National Credit Regulations, 2006 on the verification, review and removal of consumer credit information, in terms of section 73 of the National Credit Act, No 34 of 2005.
To view prescribed Time Frame for Free Credit Records, and Determination of Application and Registration Fees
Access: http://www.transunionitc.co.za
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REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: CREDIT INFORMATION INDUSTRY
David Medine of WILMERHALE, Washington DC, presented at the recent Third Global Credit Reporting Conference on October 21-23, 2008, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The conference was organized by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) - World Bank Group for the purpose of discussing Public Policy and Innovative Solutions for Credit Reporting in Emerging Markets.
David Medine provided an overview of Legal and Regulatory Framework, Enforcement and Supervision of the Credit Reporting Industry in the USA. To view his presentation, please click on the attachment.
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RISK MITIGATION (CREDIT RISK)
From Turkey to the Yemen, from Egypt to Oman, the Region presents a fascinating challenge in demanding individual and innovative risk mitigation techniques. The attached presentation focuses on the problem solving methodologies in this demanding RISK environment.
This presentation was presented at FCIB's 3rd International Credit & Risk Management Conference in Dubai on March 19th, 2007
ERS Consulting Services Eddy Sumar, MBA, CCE, CICE, CEW
7841 Leucite Avenue Rancho Cucamonga, CA. 91730
909-481-9869
ealberto@aol.com
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SEARCH ENGINES
It is a Latin term which means I seek
It is a Europe-centric effort to create the perfect search engine to improve the accuracy in search. The project will focus on three areas: a combined sound, image, and video search engine for the general public, professional search applications. More details will become available shortly.
The Quaero concept is based on the principles of a partnership between universities and companies, backed of course by tax-payers money.
Latest news about Quaero:
The French and German consortium that had been developing new search
engine Quaero has split apart because of differences over technology.
Germany has pulled out of the Quaero consortium and will set up its own
research project, Theseus.
The French Agency for Industrial Innovation
(AII), which has been funding the research, now intends to reshape the
project. Source: EPS Insights 21/12/2006
http://www.epsltd.com
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SELF-REGULATION
CODE OF CONDUCT ON COMMERCIAL CREDIT INFORMATION
BIIA members subscribe to a code of conduct and to high quality standards.
To view the summary click on the attachment
To access the BIIA code of conduct click on the link: http://www.biia.com/code_of_conduct.php
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SHARED SERVICE CENTERS
Stephen Skipwith spoke at the DUBAI 3rd FCIB International Credit & Risk Conference about the Drivers & Barriers to Shared Service Centres (SSCs), both in terms of inception & sustainability.
He focused on Order to Cash Cycle, which is possibly the greatest area of competitive advantage an SSC can deliver. He also spoke about Credit Management & its evolving role in SSCs & the Order to Cash cycle
Stephen Skipwith MICM (Grad), MBA
European Credit Manager
TaylorMade adidas Golf
E-Mail: stephen.skipwith@tmag.com
FCIB: http://www.fcibglobal.com
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SME - INFORMATION SERVICES IN INDIA
Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) India launched the publication D&B-SBI SME Cluster Series 2009 - Jalandhar. Dedicated to the Jalandhar cluster, the study is the fourth in the series of Cluster studies released by D&B in strategic association with State Bank of India. The clusters earlier covered under this series were Chennai, Nagpur and Vadodara.
D&B-SBI SME Cluster Series 2009 Jalandhar focuses on SMEs whose manufacturing units are situated in Jalandhar and nearby areas. The publication covers three prominent sectors in terms of number of units and employment Sports Goods, Rubber Goods and Leather Goods.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Mohan Ramaswamy, Director - Business Development, Dun & Bradstreet India, said, D&B-SBI SME Cluster Series 2009 Jalandhar, covers three prominent sectors Sports Goods, Rubber Goods and Leather Goods and highlights the operational and technological aspects, issues and challenges and growth prospects of these sectors. The SMEs that participated in the survey acknowledged the importance of technology in improving productivity and quality. However, the study also found that the cost of technology and power outages were major hindrances for adoption of sophisticated technology among the surveyed SMEs. Our study also found that awareness of the latest technology available was quite low among the surveyed companies across the three sectors in the cluster."
"Interestingly, despite the slowing economy, the surveyed SMEs were optimistic about growth in the next 2 years. SMEs surveyed across all three segments expected growth to be in the range of 11% to 20%," he added.
D&B-SBI SME Cluster Series 2009 Jalandhar draws insights from various SMEs operating in the three sectors, with the objective of providing an update on the present status and structure of the Jalandhar cluster in terms of key industries. It also highlights the strategies and attributes of the SMEs operating in these industries, discusses the existing and future technology scenario with regards to the Jalandhar Cluster and comments on the future growth prospects of the cluster.
To read the full study click on the following link: http://www.dnb.co.in/News_Press.asp?mid=170
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SME CREDIT BUREAU SINGAPORE
A collaborative effort between Dun & Bradstreet (Singapore) Pte Ltd and the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ASME).
Launched on 21 Mar 2005 by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth & Sports and Second Minster for Trade & Industry.
Fully operational since 01 October 2005.
Dun & Bradstreet (Singapore) Pte Ltd
http://www.icdnb.com.sg
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SME CREDIT BUREAUS
Infocredit D&B Singapore and the IFC (World Bank Group) have introduced 'SME Toolkit' in partnership. The SME Toolkit was developed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank's Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) department, and was introduced for the first time in Singapore at the SME Credit Bureau's second conference on May 19th, 2006.
Website: http://www.icdnb.com.sg
For further information contact Joyce Ong, Infocredit D&B at +65 6318 7911 or by e-mail: joyce.ong@icdnb.com.sg
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SME CREDIT INFORMATION APPLICATIONS
Dora Hsu of Joint Credit Information Center (Taiwan) presented at the 6th World Consumer Credit Reporting Conference in Rio de Janeiro on the subject of Blending of Consumer and Commercial Data for SME Use.
To view the presentation, please click on the attachment.
Source: http://www.jcic.org.tw
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SOCIAL MEDIA IN CHINA
Corporations should become more sophisticated and confident in their engagement with China's rapidly growing social media if they are to influence policy, a White Paper released by Edelman and PublicAffairsAsia has concluded.
Following a survey of public affairs (PA) professionals and a high-level roundtable in Beijing, the White Paper The Dragon and the Mouse: Social Media and Public Affairs in China reports that social media is considered to be the most influential communications medium in China.
The study also signals that PA executives believe blogs, bulletin boards and other social media are set to grow in importance "to their companies" over the coming 12 months.
To read the White Paper click on the attachment
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SOUTH AFRICA RISK MANAGMENT
PERC Releases Study of Landscape of Small Business Financing in South Africa
September 16, 2008
The Political and Economic Research Council releases its study, Information Sharing and SMME Financing in South Africa: A Survey of the Landscape. The study can be downloaded at:
http://www.infopolicy.org/pdf/South-Africa-compressed-web.pdf
(Chapel Hill, NC) The Political and Economic Research Council (PERC) has released a survey of the small, medium, and micro-enterprise lending landscape in South Africa ahead of the proposed National Credit Register. The study overviews the current state of lending in South Africa, examines specific credit access barriers and viable near-term solutions, and looks at the specific effects and implications of the National Credit Act of 2005.
Key findings include:
- Large lenders such as commercial banks can successfully lend to SMMEs.
- South Africa has an advanced information infrastructure.
- Because of a lack of information, many SMMEs have no access to credit.
- Trade credit and non-financial payment data (alternative data) are underused in South Africa and increased collection from the informal sector could increase credit access.
The report also makes specific recommendations for the proposed National Credit Register. These include:
- In order to permit the sharing of SMME credit information, the NCR must strive to not compete with bureaus but to channel information in a neutral fashion and to keep required reported information to a minimum to protect potential data furnishers from data poachers.
- Development of a registry of collateral can mitigate the risk that the same collateral has been pledged to multiple lenders.
- The guidelines for reckless lending in the NCA should take into account the possibility that consumer loans may be used for commercial purposes.
The report shows that despite South Africas developed information sharing architecture, there is a significant and real need for financing in the second economy.
About PERC: The Political and Economic Research Council (PERC) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization devoted to research, public education and outreach on public policy matters. PERC's goal is to educate and engage policy makers, consumers, the financial/economic community and the larger public, in the firm belief that a better informed public makes better decisions. Areas of expertise include information policy, credit access and the global information economy. The Council is funded by both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations that support the Institute's general mission and agenda.
For more information contact:
Adam Rodman
919-338-2798 ext. 803
rodman@infopolicy.org
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STATE OF INFORMATION - MIDDLE EAST
BIIA reently presented at the 3rd FCIB International Credit & Risk Management Conference in DUBAI, UAE on the State of Information emphasising the situation in the Middle East.
Business intelligence is important during every phase of establishing and maintaining a relationship, especially when that relationship includes a cross-border party and the transaction takes place in another country.
Emerging market countries are developing business intelligence networks that are making the process of gathering information easier. However, it takes experience to tap into the right network and assess the available information for transparency, limits and applicability. In terms of the effectiveness of information to be used in investment and credit decisions one has to consider the state of information in the respective markets which are under scrutiny.
There are five key factors that drive information availability: Public sector information, mandatory disclosure, regulatory framework, access to bank information and trade information are considered to be the most critical success factors for providing accurate, reliable and timely credit information. All of these factors are outside the control of an information supplier. While decision makers demand uniform decision support and information services across the globe, credit information and rating services levels are still asymmetric due to a fragmented information industry, underdeveloped public sector information, lack of access to bank information and negative attitudes towards mandatory and voluntary disclosure.
Imperfect information makes imperfect markets, is an often quoted comment by Joseph Stiglitz, the former Chief Economist of the World Bank. In many emerging market countries we are faced with the dilemma of Imperfect Information, notwithstanding the advances made in information technology (ICT) and the Internet. The attached presentation illustrates current conditions concerning business intelligence, investment and credit information, trends and what needs to be done to overcome Imperfect Information.
Joachim C. Bartels is Managing Director of BIIA Business Information Industry Association Asia Pacific Middle East Ltd. He can be reached at ieijcb@attglobal.net
FCIB: Association for Executives in Finance, Credit and International Business http://www.fcibglobal.com
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STATE OF INFORMATION IN EMERGING MARKETS
Business intelligence is important during every phase of establishing and maintaining a relationship, especially when that relationship includes a cross-border party and the transaction takes place in another country.
Emerging market countries are developing business intelligence networks that are making the process of gathering information easier. However, it takes experience to tap into the right network and assess the available information for transparency, limits and applicability. In terms of the effectiveness of information to be used in investment and credit decisions one has to consider the state of information in the respective markets which are under scrutiny.
There are five key factors that drive information availability: Public sector information, mandatory disclosure, regulatory framework, access to bank information and trade information are considered to be the most critical success factors for providing accurate, reliable and timely credit information. All of these factors are outside the control of an information supplier. While decision makers demand uniform decision support and information services across the globe, credit information and rating services levels are still asymmetric due to a fragmented information industry, underdeveloped public sector information, lack of access to bank information and negative attitudes towards mandatory and voluntary disclosure.
Imperfect information makes imperfect markets, is an often quoted comment by Joseph Stiglitz, the former Chief Economist of the World Bank. In many emerging market countries we are faced with the dilemma of Imperfect Information, notwithstanding the advances made in information technology (ICT) and the Internet. The attached presentation illustrates current conditions concerning business intelligence, investment and credit information, trends and what needs to be done to overcome Imperfect Information.
Joachim C. Bartels is Managing Director of BIIA Business Information Industry Association Asia Pacific Middle East Ltd. He can be reached at ieijcb@attglobal.net
FCIB is an association of executives in Finance, Credit and International Business http://www.fcibglobal.com
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SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
"As corporate strategies and behavior evolve, companies are rapidly exposing themselves to many new types of business risk"
- Companies have created an expectation of supply chains with a certain cost
- Organizations do not have the luxury of adding the incremental headcount/resources that would be necessary to address these new risks
- Companies must exception-manage and use enhanced leadtime to selectively deploy appropriate mitigation
- Key is to know best as possible and early as possible where the problems are
Processes, tools, behaviors and technologies must be put in place to continuously monitor and selectively mitigate.
Jim Lawton, Leader Supplier Risk and Analytics; D&B Corporation
http://www.dnb.com
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SUPPLY CHAIN RISK
United Technologies Corp. (NYSE:UTX) is the US$43 billion manufacturer working with more than 25,000 suppliers worldwide. UTC implemented a revolutionary initiative to ensure peak performance from its global supply bases. Supplier failure can ripple through the entire value chain of a corporation, which is an important reason for UTC wanting to know if a supplier heads for a crisis long before its impacts its business.
Open Ratings (a D&B Company) helps UTC invest in the health of its suppliers, improving the value stream and enabling lean practices while minimizing exposure to risk. http://www.dnb.com
To read the full case study click on the attachment.
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SUPPLY CHAIN RISK
"When it comes to global sourcing, many organizations claim to make total cost decisions that take into account risk factors, but few actually understand the potential of catastrophic risk versus everyday risk that is more easily modeled such as currency fluctuation and tax, tariff, and duty changes."
Jim Lawton, Vice President and General Manager, Open Ratings, a D&B Company. Jim Lawton can be reached at lawtonj@dnb.com
To read the full story click on the attachment.
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SUPPLY CHAIN RISK
Supplier failure can ripple through the entire value chain of a corporation, which is an important reason as to why Copley Controls wants to anticipate issue in its supply chain before they happen, and avoid costly after-the-fact damage control situation.
To read the full story click on the attachement.
This case study was provided courtesy of Open Ratings, a D&B Company
http://www.dnb.com
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SUPPLY CHAIN RISK
When it comes to the supply risk, advanced procurement organizations are most in danger because the actions they have taken to generate savings and results have increased their risk as an unintended consequence.
Jim Lawton, Vice President and General Manager, Open Ratings, a D&B Company. Jim Lawton can be reached at lawtonj@dnb.com; http://www.dnb.com
To read the full story click on the attachment.
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TAXONOMY - PRODUCT & SERVICE CLASSIFICATIONS
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THE FUTURE OF FINANCIAL JOURNALISM
Hugo Dixon, Editor-inChief of Breakingviews.com stated at a recent Global Information Industry Summit, organized by the US based Software and Information Industry Association, that print journalism is in inexorable decline and newswires are being commoditized.
Faced with 'a lost generation' - people under thirty years of age - who will never read a paper, newspapers experience declining circulation, which generally leads to savage cutbacks in staff resulting in loss of talent.
The battle is on to keep talent and to capture the attention of online readers with a new brand of journalism. The issue is how to make money out of online journalism. Professionals are mobile, they demand sophisticated content. They are not prepared to put up with second rate insight. In addition speed matters.
To view Hugo Dixons presentation click on the attachment
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TRADE CREDIT
Trade or B2B Credit is the selling of a product or service based on payment at some later date. As Commercial Lenders cut back on lending to businesses more companies are extending more credit than ever to business customers.
Money is a medium of exchange with an established value that is accepted in return for goods and services. The dominant form of money is currency which is issued, controlled and limited by governments. An alternative to money is B2B (commercial) credit and no government printing presses or controls are required.
Credit allows for the value of a product or service to be assessed and for profitable sales to happen based on payment at some later date. Credit is an intermediary used in trade to avoid the inconvenience and inefficiencies of a pure barter system.
Credit terms, i.e. IOUs, like money are a medium of exchange.
Safeguards so as to protect the value of credit extended must exist just as governments must safeguard the value of the money they print and while the supply of money is limited by how much of it governments print, credit is virtually unlimited; in fact the more of it that is created/extended the greater is the demand for products and services . Safeguards are the combination of the use of commercial credit information and professional credit management.
Credit, properly understood and managed, allows for the expanded movement of products and services and for economic growth and prosperity . Credit is a lubricant of commerce and greases the wheels of business.
Fear of loss and focus on risk management due to a lack of knowledge on the full profit potential from credit and on how to properly manage this unlimited medium of exchange creates bottlenecks, i.e inefficiencies that hinder the fruitful expansion of trade.
ABE WALKINGBEAR SANCHEZ
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TRADE CREDIT AND THE CHINA SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM
An overwhelming number, some 90% of business deals in Western countries are settled on the basis of integrity (credit)
After WTO accession, the primary challenge to be faced by China will be its exchanges with credit-based economies in international trade.
The Social Credit System is by far, the greatest experiment in the creation of credit management talent and the accumulation and management of credit information ever attempted
Prof. Patrick O. Connelly
Institute, for Global Credit/Risk Management
College of Business
University of South Florida
Tampa, Florida
Presented at the 2nd BIIA Business Information Industry Forum 2006 in Tianjin, China on October 25th 2006
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TRADE CREDIT INSURANCE
Information provided courtesy of:
Rick Ostopowicz
Euler Hermes ACI
Public Relations and Communications Specialist
Tel: +1 410-753-0652
Fax: +1 410-753-0953
800 Red Brook Boulevard
Owings Mills, MD 21117
rick.ostopowicz@eulerhermes.com
http://www.eulerhermes.com/usa
A company of Allianz
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TRADE INFORMATION
The People's Bank of China and the International Finace Corporation (IFC) - World Bank Group held a user group symposium on June 20th - 21st, 2007 in Tianjin, China. Over 300 bankers and credit experts attended the symposium. Over 10 bank, finance and information industry experts presented a range of topics stressing the value of credit information in banking and trade credit transactions.
BIIA presented on the topic: "How Trade Credit Data (Trade Information) can Complement the Bankers' View of Credit History"
To obtain the full presentation please contact: info@biia.com
http://www.ifc.org
http://www.pbc.gov.cn
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TURKEY
Exporta's second annual Turkey Trade & Export Finance Forum in Istanbul (October 2007)was attended by over 120 delegates and received rave reviews from all participants. Dr. Selim Seval, CEO of Finar, Turkey provided a review of available rating and credit scoring services in Turkey, which included a distribution of current Turkish Risk Ratings.
It is interesting to note that 66% of companies rated in Turkey are in the high and average risk categories, 28% of which are in the high risk quartile.
Dr. Seval also stressed the need to support SMEs in Turkey and to train SMEs in practicing good risk behavior and to become good risk managers themselves. His comments are highlighted in the attached presentation.
http://www.finar.tr
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TURKEY RISK PROFILE
Dr. Selim Seval, Managing Director of FINAR, Turkey spoke at the recent annual conference of FEBIS in Palermo, Italy on September 24, 2008.
Dr. Seval presented an overview of the state of the Turkish credit information market and information availability. He stated that the current risk rating profile of Turkey showed that 22% of ratings were in the high risk quartile, 37% were in the average risk quartile, 28% low risk quartile and 13% were in the minimum risk quartile. Information availability is improving and public sector information will further improve with the creation of e-government systems.
To access the full presentation click on the attachment.
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UN Conventions
Summary of the Convention (For Details see Presentation)
The Convention is an interesting attempt to revive old conventions in the context of electronic communication
It broadens the scope of application of its norms and removes many exclusions of CISG
The Convention is not mature as it contains mistaken presumptions, strange definitions and misconceptions (interactive system)
Inflexibility of some of its provisions, derogation from usages coupled with the fact that the Internet community cannot participate in the drafting stage creates a serious risk that the whole effort may not be accepted in practice.
Dr P.P.Polanski IRIS 2006, 17 February 2005 38
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UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development)
UNCTAD has recently announced the publication of its Information Economy Report 2005. The documents deals primarily with issues concerning 'The Information Economy'.
Chapter 3 of the UNCTAD report deals specifically with E-Credit Information, Trade Finance and E-Finance: Overcoming Information Asymmetries.
Copyright UNCTAD 2005
The English version of the report is available on the Internet: http://www.unctad.org/ecommerce
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UNCTAD - E-Finance and Credit Information
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