Iceland company is not allowed to Azerbaijani financial market

Baku. 29 December. REPORT.AZ/ Ministry of Taxes has refused to register Iceland's Creditinfo company, the first credit bureau of Azerbaijan to be established with the participation of Iceland's Creditinfo.

A source in the financial market told Report.

Notably, Creditinfo-Azerbaijan planned to start operation with 4,6 mln. AZN (about 2.3 million EUR). 51% of this amount was to be provided by Iceland and 49% - by 19 banks of Azerbaijan, TBC Kredit LLC non-bank credit organization (NBCO) and PASHA Sığorta OJSC. According to the source, the ministry has shown deficiencies in the founding documents as an official reason for refusal to register. 8 local banks - International Bank of Azerbaijan, Bank Respublika, Xalq Bank, Kapital Bank, Pasha Bank, Rabitabank, Unibank and Ziraat Bank (Azerbaijan) decided to create a separate credit bureau themselves. 

However, unofficial reasons are also provided for non-admission of Creditinfo to the financial market of Azerbaijan. One of them is that the Financial Market Supervisory Authority of the Republic of Azerbaijan (FIMSA) did not want the Iceland company to have a 51% stake in the bureau's authorized capital. In other words, FIMSA not wanted Creditinfo to become a main shareholder of bureau even though local founders wanted that, because Creditinfo has a rich experience in this area. The other reason is that the Icelandic company will likely be able to transmit data to any country in the future. In other words, the Creditinfo-Azerbaijan project is frozen, taking into account information security.