October 2014

“Queen of the Slum” visits Creditinfo Iceland

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Lucy Odipo, better known to most as “Mama Lucy” or the “Queen of the Slum”, is a truly amazing woman. Mrs. Odipo is the initial founder of The Little Bees Children Self Help Group and currently serves as Director. A Kenyan national, Mrs. Odipo has played a vital role in establishing vital projects in Nairobi, such as The Little Bees School a Nursery School & Daycare to provide critical care and support for deprived children.. Through the school and related projects , Mrs.Odipo and her team provide much needed education and help to individuals and families to access medical care and to secure shelter.

Lucy lives amongst the 500,000 inhabitants of the slums of Mathare in Nairobi, Kenya. Most of the people live in tiny, one-room homes made from whatever materials they can find. Conditions are dismal with sewage and trash flowing through the streets along with crime, sickness and death running rampant. There are no government services like water or electricity. Continue reading »

Product Development – doing the right thing the right way

brynjaToday,  Brynja Baldursdottir, Director of Sales & Product Development, Creditinfo Iceland, delivered a presentation to the Creditinfo Academy entitled “Product Development – Doing the right thing the right way”.

To read Brynja’s biography please click here

You can watch the video recording,  click here

And for the PowerPoint presentation click here

 

Congratulations to Chris Sanders, Business Change Partners

Chris Sanders FICMWe’d like to send our congratulations to Mr. Chris Sanders from Business Change Partners.

Chris was announced the winner of the CCR Contribution for Contribution to the Credit Industry Credit Excellence Award at the Gala Dinner last night.

Commiserations to GB Group plc who along with Creditinfo were also finalists in this category.

CCR-i will be posting all other winners and finalists for the other awards on their website soon.

We’d also like to thank CCR-i for their excellent organisation of this event and to the judges who we know put a lot of time and effort into reviewing the hundreds of lengthy applications.

 

 

 

 

Creditinfo invited by IFC to work to expand access to credit

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and Bank Al-Maghrib, the Central Bank of Morocco, organised the 5th international symposium to train African and MENA central banks and financial regulators on financial infrastructure and risk management that will help smaller businesses gain access to finance and boost economic growth.

Creditinfo, by invitation of IFC, along with other invitees including senior personnel from Central Banks, lenders’ association, doors, MFI associations, Private Credit Bureau, banking supervisors and policy makers met towards the end of September in Rabat, Morocco.   Representatives were principally from Africa and the Middle East, but also from Central Asia, particularly Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan and a few participants were from Asia,  including Indonesia and Philippines.  The four-day event brought together some 40 international experts and 150 attendees from 35 central banks and 50 countries.

Continue reading »

Congratulations

A baby boy for the Carter family. 
Congratulations to Andrew Carter and his wife who recently moved back to the UK from Tanzania.  They have added to the Carter family….. A baby boy, Max, arrived by C section on 2nd October at 7.5 lb.  Mother and baby doing well.  Oh, and Andrew is auditioning for ‘Scrubs’ soon!

Players of the Month – Creditinfo Iceland

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They recently moved offices without disruption to their services and working day. They have moved to a lower floor in the same building so the address and contact information remains the same.  The recent growth and future development plans  require them to have a larger space, but the key reason for the move was to ensure everyone is together on the same floor, rather than spread over 2 floors as before and also to improve their working environment.

The Senior Management Team Meeting

mgt mtgWe’d like to thank the senior management for most of them travelling a many miles to a small town called Rodgau, just outside Frankfurt, Germany.  The team got together for 2 days of training and discussions for the annual senior management meeting. Each office discussed their successes and challenges from the last 12 months and highlighted a few areas which they will be working on in the coming year.

Training covered Product Development, Sales Coaching, Value Added Products, the Company Values, Lead Generation online & offline and looking in detail at “Strongest In …..”.    Reynir discussed the financials and our goals for the future.  One of our primary goals is 50 countries by 2020.

Sat around the table were 30 individuals who spoke 22 different languages highlighting what a multicultural team we have. Next year, there are likely to be a lot more new faces who will join the current team.

Although the 2 days were quite intense and quite long, especially for those who had flown in that morning or those on long haul flights who flew in the night before, they managed to kick back a little when the whole team played paintball.  Yes, we got to shoot at each other and at Reynir and Almar!

Continue reading »

The Maltese show off their driving skills.

charles vella2 charlene camilleri2Congratulations to Charles Vella, Financial Controller at Creditinfo Malta!

The team recently went go karting as part of a team building exercise.  Initially, they were split into 2 teams boys v. girls to determine the fastest drivers, so they could then be split into 2 teams for the actual race. In the actual race Charles was the fastest of the fastest drivers, along with Charlene Camilleri coming 2nd.  Yes, Charlene gave the guys a whooping leaving them in her tracks of dust!  Charlene was the only girl in the team of the fast drivers.  Although if you saw her sporty car, you’d get an idea why! In the 2nd team of the slightly slower drivers, Emma came out as the winner, revealing some quite aggressive driving skills which even she didn’t know was in her!  Must be the last 3 years of practice on the Maltese roads!