Prague, 05/10/2001

Together with partners such as: Bank Austria Creditanstalt; GE Capital Bank; Ceská Sporitelna; CSOB; KB Komercni Banka and CCB-Czech Credit Bureau (in which CRIF was already a shareholder as well as with TransUnion LLC in America and Czech company Aspekt Kilcullen), Crif will gather together all the information on the credit profile of an individual making a request for a credit loan, enabling its partners to exchange confidential information in order to ensure a proper and safe procedure of credit management.

The new database will function in full force at the beginning of the next year allowing for access to a range of greatly improved upon and reliable information, whereas before banks could only count on the limited information that they had available to them. In addition to this, the system organised in such a way, will allow for an up-to-the-minute report on the credit situation of a client in just a few seconds.

Banks will simultaneously up-date the database in the course of their negotiations with customers applying for credit, on a monthly basis by means of batch files, providing their banking business partners with real time information from the register.

The highly advanced technology of the information system EURISC, managed by CRIF, prevents unauthorised or accidental access to data. Adequate security measures prevent various kinds of misuse of data contained in the register and only banks and authorised staff are able to have access to the register.

In future the proposed participation of diverse companies in the credit bureau from sectors such as: leasing; telecommunications; insurance; and other banking organisations has been met with strong interest. This initiative will add considerably to the vast amount of client information - a fundamental pre-requisite in the distribution of consumer credit.

For the partners, the impetus of the credit bureau's objective is to reduce the risk of insolvency, reduce costs, facilitate the process of credit distribution, and promote in the final analysis a more accelerated growth of the credit market.

CRIF already has a strong presence in the United States, in Great Britain, Austria and Mexico.