10 Apr 2006 11:43

Experian Interfax Credit Bureau signs information exchange agreement with "VympelCom"

Experian Interfax credit bureau signed an agreement for the provision of information services with “VympelCom”, which will provide the basis for information exchange between the leading Russian mobile services operator and credit bureau clients.

As a first step “VympelCom” will send to Experian Interfax data on its clients with overdue debts for mobile services bills.
This is the first agreement to be announced of its kind, between a credit bureau and mobile services provider.
“Experience from European markets has shown a clear relationship between credit performance in Telecoms and Banking”, Nikolai Dimchenko, General Director of the credit bureau said. “When someone doesn’t pay for a phone bill, especially when it is account based, you can be pretty sure you need to be careful about lending more to them, particularly if you are a bank," he said.
He continued: “We are absolutely delighted to be working with Beeline. As market leaders, it is natural that we should work together to the benefit of our Russian customers and of the industry as a whole”.
“Cooperation with Experian Interfax means to us an opportunity to access to up-to-date services furnished by Experian to leading mobile services providers worldwide,” – Konstantin Milevsky, head of the loan monitoring department for “VympelCom” said. “We assume this will enable us to increase effectiveness of relations with our clients and at the same time to decrease the associated financial risks,” he added.
Experian Interfax credit bureau launched its full-scale activity last month. It was the first credit bureau to announce data transfer start to the Central Catalogue of Credit Histories, and as well credit reporting to consumers and the bureau’s clients.

*** Experian-Interfax was founded in October 2004. Its owners are Interfax Information Services Group, a major provider of information and services for financial markets, and Experian, a global leader in providing value-added information solutions to organizations and consumers.
Interfax Group and Experian own equal shares in Experian-Interfax, whose task is to provide information on borrowers in order to reduce credit risks.

*** VimpelCom is a leading Russian provider of mobile services. Its network covers 78 regions of Russia with a population of 136.5 million or 94% of total. In February its clientele exceeded 44.082 million people, which constitutes 34% of the national market.

*** Experian is a global leader in providing value-added information solutions to organizations and consumers.
Experian provides information, analytics, decision-making solutions and processing services. Using its comprehensive understanding of individuals, markets and economies, it helps organizations to find, develop and manage customer relationships to make their businesses more profitable.
Experian promotes greater financial health and opportunity among consumers by enabling them to understand, manage and protect their personal information, helping them control financial aspects of key life events and make the most advantageous financial decisions.
Experian works with clients across diverse industries, including financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, insurance, retail and catalogue, automotive, manufacturing, leisure, utilities, e-commerce, property and government. A subsidiary of GUS plc with headquarters in Nottingham, UK, and Costa Mesa, California, Experian’s 12,000 people in 31 countries support clients in more than 60 countries. Annual sales are in excess of £1.5 billion.
The word ‘Experian‘ is a registered trademark in the EU and other countries and is owned by Experian Ltd and/or its associated companies.
For more information, visit the company‘s website on www.experian.com.

*** Interfax Information Services Group provides news and other information products that are essential for decision-makers in politics and business. Since early 1990s, Interfax has been the main provider of up-to-date news from Russia and countries of the former Soviet Union. Over the past few years, Interfax has also become a leading provider of political and business news from China and emerging markets of Central Europe.
A network of about 30 companies operates under the Interfax brand all over Russia, the CIS, China and several Central European countries. The Group publishes news in Russian, English, Ukrainian, Kazakh, and German languages and provides about 100 specialized services.
Apart of news we offer a number of unique information products based on the state-of-the-art technologies. Among them SPARK, the System for Professional Analysis of Markets and Companies, Russia‘s largest and most comprehensive database on companies. Interfax Group produces company news, industry analysis and ratings, cooperating in this field with largest brands of the information industry. For example Moody‘s Investors Service is our partner in Moody‘s Interfax Rating Agency, which provides indispensable information for banks and investors reaching out to Russia‘s markets.
For more information, visit the Interfax web site on http://www.interfax.com/.