The Creditinfo Chronicle
The Maltese show off their driving skills.
Congratulations to Charles Vella, Financial Controller at Creditinfo Malta!
October brings with it a number of days of celebration
Did you know the 4th October is “Improve Your Office day”?
So, why not take some steps to improve your work environment! Make your desk and surrounding area a more pleasant and enjoyable space. Tidy up your clutter, do your filing, throw out the rubbish. Even buy some flowers or upgrade your mousemat.
Also on Wednesday 8th October, it is “Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work” day, which should bring a few smiles, and Thursday 9th October is Fire Prevention Day (another good reason to tidy up your desks!). Monday 20th October is Clean Up Your Virtual Desktop day.
More importantly Wednesday 29th October is Internet Day, marking the anniversary of the first usage of the Internet to send a message electronically, way back in 1969. Let’s not draw attention to the fact that the system crashed half way through sending it though! Without the internet, we wouldn’t be in business as we are today. So let’s celebrate this around the globe together. Send us some photos so we can see what you did to celebrate for any of these days or any others!
Brynja on the run in Berlin
Congratulations to Brynja Baldursdottir, Head of Sales and Product Development, Creditinfo Iceland.
Brynja recently ran the Berlin Marathon finishing in just 4 hours and 3 minutes. She was so fast that the winner got scared and set a new world record in a marathon. At a course know for producing fast times, Kenyan runner Dennis Kimetto ran 26.2 miles a full 26 seconds faster than ever before with a time of 2 hours, 2 minutes and 37 seconds. Way to go, Brynja!
Samantha Martin, Sales Executive, Creditinfo Malta
Samantha joined the team in Malta in September 2014. Having previously worked as a Business Development Manager for 3 years with 2 other Maltese data solutions companies. Prior to data solutions, Samantha has also worked as an Account Manager for a number of years with a media company. In her spare time she volunteers at the Animal Welfare shelter. Sam has settled into the team quickly with her friendly and positive outlook. She has already had her first Sales in only a few weeks of starting and getting to know the ropes. As such, we are sure she will be a great success.
Invited to join IFC in Morocco
We were invited to join IFC in Morocco last week at the 5th Financial Infrastructure and Risk Management Training for MENA and African Regions. Reynir Grétarsson (CEO Creditingo group Hf) – pictured, Paul Randall (Director of Business Development Creditinfo International GmbH), Dirce Varela (CEO, Creditinfo Cape Verde) and Edwin Urasa (Business Development Manager, Creditinfo Tanzania) attended the training.
IFC advised the training was very successful; from a course review of the feedback forms received it looks that on a scale 0-5 over 90% of participants rated the training 4 or 5 (with 5 being the highest).
Almar's monthly post
As some of you may already be aware, it was announced at the Senior Management meeting a few weeks ago, our focus for the coming years is to have operations in 50 countries by 2020. We may even achieve this sooner at the rate of knots Kiddi and the Credit Bureau Expansion team are establishing operations and succeeding at getting authorisation and approval to have licences.
We have proven success and a winning formula that will enable us to achieve this and more. We work with local teams and are always hands on supporting the
Are you aware, we are currently operating in 26 countries which includes established operations, start ups and other countries who operate our CBS5 solution themselves. We have 280 loyal employees, many of which have been with Creditinfo for more than 7 years.
We will achieve this together with your experience, your skills, your knowledge and your support of the vision, mission and values enabling us to move the company forward and overcome any challenges and obstacles.
Our HR philosophy has always been and will continue to be – “to hire for attitude and train for skills.”
Our people are:
- Passionate, Unselfish, Flexible, Loyal
- Fun to be with
- Take the initiative and have the propensity to take (calculated) risks
- Will go beyond the call of duty and take personal responsibility
- Offer sensational service, keep costs low, keep quality high and are continually on the look out to add value to the customer.
So enjoy the journey, our future is bright and so will yours be!
Almar
Credit Ombud by Reana Steyn
Today, the Creditinfo Academy welcomed Ms. Reana Steyn, Deputy Ombudsman, to talk about the Credit Ombud.
Visit their website at www.creditombud.org.za
Business Mediation by Herman Zandt
Today we were very pleased to welcome Herman to join us at the Creditinfo Academy. Herman Delivered a webinar on “Business Mediation”.
You watch his Presentation Video here: Vimeo
You can view his Presentation here:
You can find the Business Mediation Guidelines here Continue reading »
Players of the month: Credit Bureau Expansion Team
We wanted to acknowledge the efforts of this newly formed team for getting their act together so quickly. In just a few months of being established, they have set up new effective processes and some rather efficient methods of communication in order to be able to put our credit bureau expansion plans into action.
In addition to their extensive knowledge & experience in their fields, is their proactive attitude and sense of accountability. No one wants to let the team down, so everything smoothly moves along the process chain and they get the job done on time. Equally, they all have a great sense of humour (some may call it weird!), but it obviously helps them to get on better and boosts them when facing more challenging times. Oh yes, and let’s not forget, great leadership from Kiddi too!
Having fun in Prague!
Hot off the press! The Creditinfo Solutions team felt like shooting each other ….so they did! LOL :o) – don’t worry, only with lasers! Glad to see they are all smiles. It looks a fun night out!
Recent additions to the Creditinfo Family
Ondrej VomáèkaBusiness Analyst
Ondrej is a new Business Analyst at CIS. He has a rich university history! Bachelor´s degree in Applied Mechanics and Master’s degree in Biomechanics, both from Czech Technical University in Prague, one year in Valencia under the Erasmus Program, one semester at Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico City and short-term projects at Arts et Métiers ParisTech in Paris and Istanbul Technical University… After graduating, he applied for another Master´s degree in doing business at Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies and visited Nanyang Technological University in Singapore under one semester exchange program. Just like that! This guy is an animal! We discovered that he already visited more than 20 countries and he is not even 30! Well, and he is a former Czech bodybuilding Champion up to 60 kg. Soon, he will become a movie star and will run for the Governor of California 🙂 GET TO DA CHOPPA!!!
Recent additions to the Creditinfo Family
At Creditinfo Solutions
Anastasia Yurina
Commercial Assistant
Anastasia is a new part-time Commercial Assistant at CIS. Recently, she has finished the International Relations and European Studies and earned her Bachelor’s degree. Next year, she’s planning to get her Master’s degree. She has already done two Erasmus exchange programs in Cyprus and Work&Travel in the USA. In Nicosia, she worked for an on-air radio. Now, Anastasia is also working in a Broker Company. Well, if anyone wants to invest their money and be as rich as Bill Gates (n°1 in 2014 according to Forbes), feel free and contact her 🙂
Introduction to Credit Risk Management – Training coming up in Tanzania
Introduction to Credit Risk Management: Realizing the Benefits of Credit Bureau Data
This two (2) days training program is designed for bankers, microfinance and other professionals responsible for maintaining top quality loan portfolios, identifying risk management opportunities and designing financial solutions for clients in a new and evolving international credit environment.
The Training will be taking place on the 21st & 22nd October 2014 or 23rd & 24th October 2014 at Ledger Plza – Bahari Beach Hotel.
There is widespread agreement particularly amongst regulators that financial institutions need to rethink credit policies, procedures, and risks they are taking.
The workshop will provide knowledge and support to members of credit risk and operational management team to better understand the developments in Tanzania with the credit information sharing initiative.
The workshop will cover the concepts behind credit bureaus, and how businesses can use this data to improve the quality of lending, both in terms of e‑ciency and quality. The workshop will also cover the fundamental concepts of application processing and utilzation of the credit bureau reports.
It will also present an excellent networking opportunity for attendees to share ideas about their own challenges and best practice.
Sounds Interesting? Find out more here: http://www.creditinfo.co.tz/home/training-events/credit-risk-management-/
Recent additions to the Creditinfo Family
At Creditinfo Tanzania
Mohamed Kapufi
Sales & Customer Support Manager
Mohamed started his career with Ecobank in 2011 as Sales Executive responsible for selling bank products. In 2011 moved to the National Bank of Commerce (Member of Barclays Group) as an Officer Management Information System (MIS) responsible generating analytical reports to support Credit Risk Management process within the bank. In 2012 was promoted to Portfolio Management Analyst (Secured & Unsecured Lending)
In 2013 Mohamed was promoted to position of Regional Branch Operations Manager (Business Operations and Controls), the position he held until when he left to join Creditinfo. He was responsible for portfolio of 12 branches of Lake Zone with more than 100 team members.
Mohamed graduated with Advanced Diploma in Business Administration (ADBA) 2010, and Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Management (PGD -FM) 2012, from the College of Business Education (CBE).Also, he pursued Msc.in Marketing management from Mzumbe University 2014.
Players of the month: Cape Verde
This month saw the launch of the new office in Cape Verde. As you know Dirce Varela recently joined the family as CEO. For the launch, Creditinfo Cape Verde (CICV) held a 3 hour workshop at the Auditório de Caixa Económica de Cabo Verde on the 15th July.
Dirce opened the launch with an introduction to Creditinfo and then we welcomed Mr. Carlos Burgo, the Governor of the Central Bank of Cape Verde www.bcv.cv and Mr Amilcar Monteiro, the General Secretary of Câmara do Comércio Industria e Serviços de Sotavento (CCIS) www.cciss.cv. Mr. Burgo described the role of the Central Bank in licensing and the supervision of credit bureaus and Mr. Monteiro spoke about the role of the credit bureau in the access to credit for SMEs and Microfinance.
