TransUnion's Croatia Credit Bureau Opens for Business

TransUnion extends its reach into the global marketplace with this month's commencement of credit reporting operations in Croatia through HROK. The Croatian bureau marks another success for TransUnion's and CRIF's partnership in the region. Following the opening of bureaus in Russia, Thailand and India, Croatia marks the fourth credit bureau opening in the last two years for Chicago-based TransUnion.

"TransUnion's international success, whether it's alone or through strategic partnerships, is due to an ability to combine technological expertise with an understanding of the nuance relationships between local businesses and government," said TransUnion's John Nekus, chief information officer, International division. "We look forward to great successes as we continue to provide solutions to credit grantors and credit reporting services to consumers around the world."

Founded by 20 Croatian banks under the auspices of the local banking association, HROK is the first bank-owned credit bureau company in that country and represents more than 90 percent of the retail banking market in Croatia. HROK's delivery of consumer credit reports to participating financial institutions this month marks more than 9 months of data collection and extensive system testing by all parties involved in the endeavor.

"We are very pleased with the cooperation and progress achieved on this project," said Lidija Hanzek, general manager of the Croatian Credit Information Registry -- HROK. "The coordination and communication among the teams (HROK, TransUnion and CRIF) throughout the entire process was quite extraordinary. Bearing in mind the complexity of the project, the number of banks that participated in the project, and the regulations and restrictions arising from privacy protection law, the result is even more impressive."

TransUnion and CRIF contracted with HROK to develop and deploy the technology and value-added services to support credit growth in this market. HROK will manage the operations using TransUnion's proprietary International Credit Reporting System (iCRS), state-of-the-art technology designed for emerging credit markets and bureaus. Based on a common web framework, iCRS was built using some of the best technology and processes from around the globe in countries where TransUnion and CRIF operate, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Russia, Hong Kong and Thailand.

"The level of expertise and technology that went into this system is unprecedented," CRIF's Fabrizio Fraboni, director, International Division. "Moreover, through the employment of iCRS for HROK, we are in a position to foresee value-added services and decisioning technology that CRIF can introduce in the future to continuously improve the credit risk management in this market."