Experian, the global business solutions company, has announced that it plans to establish a consumer credit bureau in Bulgaria.
Experian is a world leader in developing and operating credit bureaux and in credit scoring. The company has been invited by the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund (BAEF) and the Institute for Market Economics (IME), an independent economic think tank in Bulgaria, to build and manage the bureau, which will be called Experian-Scorex Bulgarian Credit Bureau (ESBCB).
The new bureau will be a Bulgarian legal entity, wholly owned and managed by Experian. It will provide credit reports comprising positive and negative credit information to users from different business sectors, including financial and non-financial institutions such as banks, leasing companies, telecom operators, retail companies and credit card issuers, in order to bring to them the benefits of data sharing.
Announcing the new bureau, Roger Aubrook, a Director of Experian, said: "The consumer credit market in Bulgaria is growing rapidly but its efficiency and potential have been held back by the absence of shared credit data on which lenders could base their decisions and manage their customer relationships. With the creation of the ESBCB, the credit bureau members will have access to an up-to-date, online database of related information to be used in the assessment of creditworthiness, outstanding commitments, identity verification and other related credit-granting purposes.
"The basis of the bureau will be sharing consumer credit information and previous search data in a reciprocal and secure way among the member institutions, which will, therefore, be able to evaluate credit risk more accurately and reduce application processing time and costs.
"The demand for fast, accurate information in decision making in developing economies is growing rapidly as their credit markets grow and become more sophisticated. Bulgaria is no exception. Lenders need to base their decisions on relevant information about consumers, so fully automated and highly sophisticated credit information retrieval systems are key to a successful and well managed credit market in Bulgaria."