September 15, 2014, the delegation of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) visited JV JSC «Uzbek Leasing international S.C.». The delegation consisted of Mr. Satish Mehta and Mr. Ragna Chandrasekhar, experts of «Athena Credit Counselling Pvt. Ltd”, Arif Nasibov, ACAFI project coordinator in Uzbekistan and Ms. Mai Nguyen, program Manager for the expansion of access to Finance, IFC Europe and Central Asia.
The meeting evaluated and discussed the results of the IFC program to improve the financial infrastructure in Central Asia and Azerbaijan (ACAFI) implemented in Uzbekistan since 2009. The results of the evaluation will be the basis for making changes in the project activities for the next period.
The assessment was conducted by experts of “Athena Credit Counselling Pvt. Ltd” on the following major components of the project:
• improvement of the legal environment of sharing of credit information and activities of the pledge registry;
• increasing credit bureau, credit and pledge registries;
• improve the level of financial institutions and risk management through the exchange of credit information and pledge registries;
• increase financial literacy.
As is known, the Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan issued a license to carry out activities of the credit bureau to LLC “Credit information-analytical centre». This company became the first commercial credit bureau in Uzbekistan and received license No. 1 on October 6, 2012. As for the pledge registry, the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of 12 June 2014 No. 155 approved the proposal of the Central Bank of the Republic on the creation of the state unitary enterprise «Pledge registry”, which has been operating since July 1 of the current year.
Previously IFC, a member of the World Bank group and “Credit information-analytical center» signed an agreement on consulting services to attract strategic foreign technical partner for the credit bureau in order to further improve its effectiveness, based on best international experience and modern business practices.
This initiative is a part of IFC project on strengthening the ACAFI, implemented in cooperation with the government of Switzerland. The project aims to strengthen the financial infrastructure in Uzbekistan through the development of credit information sharing.