According to CRIF CEO Carlo Gherardi, the crisis regarding bad debt will impact positively on the Russian banking marketplace leading gradually to the consolidation of the banking sector. Moreover, this evolution process will also encourage an improvement in the information technology systems currently used by local banks. "Russian banks and financial institutions should improve their internal procedures in risk management in order to achieve a better level of efficiency " - said Mr. Gherardi.
Mr. Gherardi also pointed out that the majority of past due debts are fraud-related. The development of the credit bureau system would be a successful strategy in fighting against fraud alongside the implementation of specific fraud detection tools.
There are 23 credit bureaus active in Russia at present, many of them stand among the so-called generation of pocket bureaus. In association with ARB as well as with some of the country's most important banks, CRIF was co-founder of the National Bureau of Credit Histories. Established in 2005, now NBCH's database consists of 11 million credit histories which are continuously updated and integrated with new credit information submitted by more than 500 contributing banks. In Mr. Gherardi's opinion, the number of credit bureaus in Russia will be reduced to 2/3 within the next few years, as seen in many others European countries. "For instance in the Czech Republic there are two credit bureaus, one negative and one positive, the latter managed by CCB - Czech Credit Bureau, a CRIF company. Looking at the United States, with a population of around 250 million inhabitants, there are only 3 credit bureaus", added Mr. Gherardi.
