For every business to be able to undergo a self-assessment of its potential borrowing capacity, the Credit Information Bureau in conjunction with the Finance Latvia Association have developed a business loan calculator that is publicly accessible on the Association’s website.
“We have elaborated a tool that allows companies to determine their creditworthiness from the perspective of a lender and to weight how much they can afford to borrow, i.e. would a lender consider the option of granting a loan to the company and if yes, what would be the maximum amount so granted. It means that prior to scheduling a visit to bank’s loan department any company can easily estimate the total obligations it can potentially assume as at the date of making such calculations. It is certainly possible that the displayed outcome will differ from the bank’s estimates, as every credit institution applies different decision-making procedures and individual approach which due to impartial considerations cannot be taken into consideration under these calculations. Nevertheless, for the majority of businesses the estimates will be comparatively precise. The offered calculation tool is based upon data available to the Credit Information Bureau what means that the majority of banks base their decisions on the same information. We hope that this tool will improve financial literacy and payment discipline as the data checking will also reveal the company’s credit score. In case the company has a bad credit score, the tool will provide a general summary on its operations that have adversely affected the outcome. The assessment tool also permits to check the creditworthiness of one’s cooperation partners”,
Board Member of the Credit Information Bureau Intars Mikelsons explains the operation of the newly introduced tool.
The calculator is freely accessible to all companies that have satisfied their regular financial reporting requirements with the State Revenue Service with the exception of companies subject to specific annual reporting requirements, for example, farms not having the status of limited liability companies, banks, underwriters. In case the financial reporting requirements are not timely fulfilled, the estimates will not be made, and no credit limit or credit score will be available. The tool will display the maximum loan amount that the company can afford to borrow without considering already outstanding loan obligations. It means that it is for the company to carry out the final calculations by deducting from the displayed outcome the aggregate of any funds already borrowed.
“The Association continues implementation of its 15-Point Plan to Promote Financing 2021-2022. By pursuing point 11 of the plan, the Association and the Credit Information Bureau have combined their efforts and developed a credit capacity assessment tool. We hope that it will be a useful business assistant for measuring the financial health of own business, that of one’s cooperation partners and highlight financial indicators requiring improvement,”
the Chairwomen of the board of Finance Latvia Association Sanita Bajare emphasizes the advantages of the implemented solution.
The tool will also display the level of risk, namely, what is the risk of the company’s inability to honour its obligations within the next 12 months in case a loan would be granted to it. If the risk level is displayed in red, there is a high likelihood that the company will be unable to satisfy its obligations, if the level is coloured in green, it means that generally there should not be any problems with satisfying the obligations. The estimates are based on the entire information regarding the company that is available to the Credit Information Bureau, including late payment records from different sectors. The majority of these records are equally also used by banks for customer assessment. In order to access this information on the Association’s webpage, you have to enter the company’s registration number in the field “Creditworthiness Assessment Solution”.
The Credit Information Bureau is a licenced credit information bureau currently managing and administering the largest national data base of private and corporate credit history data. The bureau operates in accordance with the Latvian Law on Credit Bureaus and its majority shareholders are the largest commercial banks of Latvia. The bureau is a company belonging to one of the leading international credit information service providers – Creditinfo Group. For further information please visit: www.kib.lv.
Finance Latvia Association is a public organisation representing the Latvian financial sector at national and international level. Currently the Association brings together 34 financial sector companies, and it operates in accordance with its Articles of Association approved by the Association’s Members Meeting. The Association was founded on 23 July 1992 and is one of the oldest business organisations in Latvia.
For more information visit the following websites:
www.kib.lv,
www.creditinfo.com,
www.financelatvia.eu.
For further information please contact:
Intars Miķelsons
Commercial Director / Member of the Board
Credit Information Bureau
Ph. +371 25780302
E-mail: intars.mikelsons@kib.lv
www.kib.lv
