The Creditinfo Chronicle
4th Annual Central Asia & Caucasus Microfinance Forum
Last week, Paul Randall, Chairman of Creditinfo Georgia & Director of Business Development Creditinfo International and Alexander Gomiashvili, CEO Creditinfo Georgia, attended the 4th Annual Central Asia and Caucasas Microfinance Forum in Tblisi, Georgia.
The Forum focused on the main opportunities and challenges for investments in the region, as well as, on the main issues in responsible finance. Paul Randall chaired the Forum and also delivered a presentation to the many attendees from the industry.
“Queen of the Slum” visits Creditinfo Iceland
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
Today, 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
We’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.
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
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
We’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!
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
