Many small and medium-sized companies find that international business is not only a short term means of spreading risk but it is also a foundation for their own growth. Especially the promising new EU members and EU aspirants in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the new neighbouring countries of the European Community hold great potential. Lack of information regarding the national legal requirements and business partners however keeps companies from getting involved in foreign trade.  

Creditreform has built a dense information network together with its own Creditreform country offices in 20 European countries as well as with selected partners worldwide. Creditreform offices are present in all new EU countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Since the nineties we also have offices in Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia, which is a candidate for the next EU enlargements. Investigation and collection of claims are conducted on-site which enables us to guarantee credit reports and debt collection of the highest quality.

Creditreform operates through its offices on-site which means you should always contact your nearest Creditreform country office. However, all international services are rendered by Creditreform country offices and partners in the respective country, so you will benefit from the expertise of each country.

   
Qualified staff members who are familiar with the country, local people and language, conduct investigations on-site at all public sources (so-called primary sources, e.g. local company or trade registers, register of residents, courts and so on). Moreover, our own information (so-called secondary information sources) is also collected by contacting suppliers, interviewing the company itself, from local daily and business press, from the Creditreform internal debt collection information etc.

In order to guarantee prompt delivery of information on as many international businesses as possible we carry out research on an on-going basis. For example in Germany, Austria and most of Central and Eastern Europe we send self-assessment questionnaires to companies at regular intervals. This form of research increases the quality and number of credit reports available in our database.

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, information is processed manually because not all public registration data is available online yet and only 10% of limited partnerships comply with the publication rules. Information from public registers in other Western European countries is available online and will be integrated automatically into the report’s structure together with other information, so that the final product can be accessed directly online.

Data from public registers in some Central and Eastern European countries is often inaccurate and has to be reviewed carefully. This type of research can be very expensive and time-consuming because all the information must be evaluated and entered manually.

However, the trend is growing towards an "online solution". Besides Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slowakia, Croatien and Ukraine since August 2007 Latvia also supplies online credit reports via the Creditreform online database.

As an online member you can use our international online portal to view more than 22 million credit reports from currently 23 European countries and make immediate credit decisions.

At the moment online credit reports from the following countries are available to Creditreform members:

Trends show that this number will continue to grow.

• Go on to the second page: our work methods regarding international debt collection services...

Pages:   1   2         next