Saudi Credit Bureau (SIMAH), the leading credit bureau in MENA region, becomes the Platinum Sponsor for the 7th Annual Saudi Trade Finance Summit (STFS), which takes place on November 13th - 14th 2019 in Riyadh. The 7th Annual will gather over 350 attendees including leading CFOs and Treasurers in the Kingdom along with key stakeholders involved including Government and Regulatory Authorities, Financial Institutions, Technology providers, Trade Credit Insurers, Consulting and Advisory firms, Supply Chain Financers and Alternate Financiers to discuss financial regulations, strategies and trends shaping the Kingdom's economy.
"STFS becomes a mature platform that can contribute to the maturity of credit information reporting industry in Saudi Arabia" Swaied Alzahrani, SIMAH CEO says. He points out that total number of consumers reports stored in SIMAH database is about 15 million which explains Saudi Arabia Depth of Credit Information Index being 8 out of 8 in 2018. SIMAH has become the first credit reporting agency in the MENA region to have its own commercial trademarks
"We believe that STFS with all its packages is a good opportunity to tackle some key issues related to the credit and finance market," Alzahrani adds. SIMATI and SIMAT, SIMAH core consumer and commercial reporting systems, are very important in today's financial system.
"Creditors consider information held by these systems a primary factor when they evaluate the creditworthiness of data subjects and monitor the credit circumstances of consumers. This information flow enables credit markets to function more efficiently and at lower cost than would otherwise be possible. Well-functioning financial markets contribute to sustainable growth and economic development, because they typically provide an efficient mechanism for evaluating risk and return to investment, and then managing and allocating risk. Financial infrastructure (FI) is a core part of all financial systems. The quality of financial infrastructure determines the efficiency of intermediation, the ability of lenders to evaluate risk and of consumers to obtain credit, insurance and other financial products at competitive terms" CEO of SIMAH clarifies.
Established in 2002, operated since 2004 and issued more than 82 million credit reports since 2004 till end of December 2018 with data quality score of % 99.4, SIMAH's registered new trademarks which come as a further phase of SIMAH new identity. New trademarks registered by Ministry of Commerce and Investment include FINDATA (a new innovative marketing concept in the credit reporting industry); SIMATI ( consumer reporting system ); SIMAT ( commercial reporting system) and MOARIF (Legal Entity Identifier). MOARIF is the first Local Operating Unit in the MENA accredited by Global Legal Entity Identifier Originations (GLIEF), run by SIMAH and covers 18 countries. Total number of credit instruments at SIMAH is more than 47 million CIs.
Among real commercial needs that SIMAH works to meet in the Saudi market is providing new types of benchmarking reports. SIMAH has developed recently benchmarks reports and SIMAH 360. During the last 15 years, SIMAH has generated 110,000 financial reports while the total number of consumers registered at SIMAH is more than 1,1 million individuals. Benchmarking reports are detailed reports that compare key metrics of the organization's products and portfolio to the competitors.
" With this type of report, credit providers would be more able to prepare budgets, make informed business decisions & develop business forecasting. SIMAH 360 provides tools to analyze large batches of data and credit information and to develop clear strategies to achieve customer demands. This helps strengthen the decision-making process; reduce credit risk and increase profitability; increase the company's market share; create new, diversified products and develop its current product line. SIMAH 360 includes accurate information on more than 200 variables, including up-to-date credit performance information, SIMAH's assessment of creditworthiness (i.e. SIMAH score), geographical information and contact information derived from SIMAH's comprehensive database" Alzahrani elaborates.