History

The credit bureau of Kyrgyzstan CIB Ishenim is one of the first credit bureaus created in the post-soviet states at the beginning of 2000s. The history of creating and establishing the CIB Ishenim differs from the standard pattern according to which the institutions have been usually established. Thus, the development and adoption of the special law precedes the creation of the credit bureau, in most cases, the Central Bank, or the union of commercial banks initiates its creation and provides extensive support to the new structure. CIB Ishenim has been established and continues its operations under nonstandard conditions without any support from the governmental agencies and with imperfect legal framework. Despite such non classical conditions the experience of the CIB Ishenim to date and its way of development is one of the best in the CIS. The Association of FCO “Credit and Information Bureau “Ishenim” (hereinafter referred to as the CIB Ishenim) was officially registered on March 17, 2003 with the Ministry of Justice of the KR. The Founders are the following: CJSC “Bank of Asia”, CJSC “Demir Kyrgyz International Bank”, and OJSC “Energobank” (currently OJSC “UniCreditBank). EuropeAid Program of SME Development in Kyrgyzstan provided financial assistance amounting to 14 000 euro. The CIB Ishenim started receiving information from the participants of the exchange system (hereinafter referred to as the participants) in November 2003. The first credit report was issued in February 2004 containing only negative information. According to the joint decision of the participants the credit bureau began providing both negative and positive information about individuals and legal entities as of November 2004. As a result, the creditors have the possibility to receive and assess full credit history of the prospective borrowers. An additional automatic service “kolokol” was introduced in August 2005 to ensure a follow up monitoring of the behavior of the credit history subjects. The CIB Ishenim created a unique centralized database which holds over 1 300 000 credit histories as of 1 August 2013 (53.15% of economically active population of the country). Ninety six (96) organizations are the participants of the credit information exchange system in CIB Ishenim as of 1 August 2013, out of which 22 banks out of 23 active banks in the market of the Kyrgyz Republic, 55 microfinance and microcredit institutions, 18 credit unions, and 1 cellular service operator.