Russian Audit Chamber and Interfax sign information deal

Russia‘s Audit Chamber and Interfax Information Services Group have signed an agreement enabling the Chamber to publish its information via Interfax information and analysis systems.

Audit reports by the Chamber will be quickly published via SPARK (Professional Market and Company Analysis System), Russia‘s largest corporate information database. This will enable financial market participants to use this information any time they need to make an investment decision.

Such reports (including reports for preceding years) will also be accessible via a new Interfax product, the SKAN (Comprehensive News Analysis System) text database, which offers information from more than 1,000 public sources that are important for business in Russia.

Audit Chamber Chairman Sergei Stepashin, in signing the agreement, said transparency was one of the Chamber‘s main principles.

The chairman of the Interfax Group Board of Directors, Mikhail Komissar, said: "Today SPARK users include all large Russian banks, corporations, stock market participants and auditors. Now they will be able to receive and analyze information from the Audit Chamber and data disclosed by other state bodies, which will become yet another very important step in raising the transparency of the Russian corporate sector."

The Audit Chamber inspects operations by Russia‘s banking system as regards state finances and the national debt and by enterprises, organizations, banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions that receive, transfer or use state money, use or manage federal property, or enjoy tax or customs duty concessions or other privileges.

SPARK contains information on 9.5 million business enterprises, including those that are not legal entities.

Such information comes from more than ten sources, mainly the Federal Service for State Statistics, the Federal Service for Financial Markets and its regional branches, the Federal Tax Service, the Russian Central Bank, the Federal Agency for the Management of Federal Property, the Federal Insurance Oversight Service, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, and the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

SPARK also provides information on bankruptcies, court rulings on companies, information disclosed by companies, information from key depositaries, recommendations and forecasts by investment bank analysts, and corporate news from Interfax.

SPARK brings together practically all corporate information that is legally accessible in Russia.

The author of SPARK databases is Interfax-CNA, a specialized analytical service that is part of Interfax Group.

*** Interfax Information Services Group provides information products and means of communication needed for political and business solutions.

The Group, set up in 1989, is a network of national, regional and specialized news agencies operating in Russia, elsewhere in the Commonwealth of Independent States, in China, and in Central Europe.

Interfax comprises companies and divisions reporting news, providing analytical services, market data and basic information, and developing software solutions.