Empowering financial access for Iceland, the Baltics, and beyond, with Hrefna Sigfinnsdottir and Elari Tammenurm (CreditInfo)

Welcome back to Harsaline Money to Strangers, with myself Brendan Lagrange. For the 199th episode of the show I thought I'd do something a little bit different and put together a double header of guests. If you've listened to many of the previous 198 episodes of the show, you will have heard guests talking from markets around the world and people sometimes ask me how I do that. How do you find somebody to interview in Multovar as by genre, or Lao, Brazil, or Kenya? Well the answer is I source my guests through a number of different channels. Some guests reach out to me directly via the website. Harsaline Money to Strangers.show has a contact form on it and you're welcome to use that. Or they reach out to me on email or LinkedIn. And again, you're welcome to do that too. Sometimes the person doing the reaching out is a PR company who have a guest they want to place. I'm open to that. As long as they've got an interesting story, they welcome to come. And at other times I do use tools like LinkedIn to do cold messaging. So if you're in an interesting market or an interesting company and you have lending in your job title, there's a decent chance that if I haven't yet reached out to you on LinkedIn, I will in the near future to see if you would come on to the show. But then of course, I also use my own professional network reaching out to all colleagues or to the companies I used to work for in the past. And that's why if you look back at the names of the company's featured, you will see a few that have come on more than once. I worked for Xperian for two years in Denmark and so they have been a handful of Xperian episodes. I worked for TransUnion in Hong Kong and the UK and so they've been a handful of TransUnion episodes. But there's one organization that appears multiple times with no direct connection to me. And that's the credit info group home of my guests for today. And the reason that they occupy this unique space is probably two fold. One actually several of my past colleagues do now work there. Burak a boss of mine from my days in Denmark and Satti and John from my time here in the UK. I haven't been offered a job myself, but maybe one day. But the other side is that they operated one of the more interestingly diverse set of markets around the world founded in Iceland. They've since spread across Scandinavia, Europe, West Africa, the Middle East, Latin America. And so whenever I speak to somebody from the company, I know that there's going to be something interesting and a different sort of angle they can bring. Today we are looking at Iceland to talk a little bit about the founding of the company. But more what that home market looks like. What is special about it that may be shaped some of the innovations we see them bringing to life in other far different markets. And in Estonia to look at the ball takes a small place for sure, but a real hub of plenty of innovation in Europe and the world I suppose. So we're two guests to get through today. Let's get straight into it. Kreffner Sigmunds daughter CEO of Credit Info Iceland. Welcome to the show. Wow, thanks having me. It's a pleasure and Credit Info is one of those organisations I really love talking to because I think you have the most unique mix of countries under the umbrella. And so there's always an interesting story to come out of it from a market that doesn't always get the most headlines at least in the English newspapers. So I'm really looking forward to today because it's not just a new kind of market for me to explore, but it's also the roots of Credit Info app there in the very far north there in Iceland. But before we talk about your current role as CEO there, one of your several roles we'll take advantage of learning from in a minute. Let's set the scene a bit with some of your background because you spent 35 years or so in financial services in Iceland, which is a small country population, but one that holds a fairly significant part of place in the history and then the sort of functioning of financial services globally kind of an outsized impact in many cases. So share for me a little bit of what your early career looked like and maybe some of the experiences that shaped how you think about the world today. Yeah, thanks. Well, I was actually brought up in business. My grandfather was one of the founders of the Big Retail Store here in Iceland, so I'll always work for him. I loved doing that, but I thought to be good in business, you need to love what you do and actually hardware was not the love of my life. So I decided at the time when I graduated from business school, I would really want to step into a new scene that was happening in Iceland and that was securities trading. There was quite new at the time. So I got really lucky because I got a very good position at an extremely exciting company at the time. This is the year 1994. So Skandia, sweetest company, had opened up a brand here in Iceland that was both selling insurance and securities. And I was on the security part of the business, worked there for several years, and I had a lady at the time who was the CEO and she saw something in me and I was only 24 when I got my first big role because I was the head of the retail business for Skandia for some years. And I did many things there, really, really good experience at the time, also met with some really good people that I had that year and year later on, because Iceland is quite a small market. So after working for almost six years at Skandia, I decided to move over to the stock exchange. I thought that was an interesting platform. And I had the listing department there for many years. We were listing all kinds of companies. It was just really popular for companies to come into the stock exchange. So I worked for the Icelandic stock exchange for some years and was heading the listing department and there you really got to know the companies, know the leaders and you kind of get the feel and touch of what is important for clients to know about the companies to be able to trade them. After doing that, I went into private equity. So it was a private equity fund that was founded in 2006. So it was before the financial crisis in Iceland. And we were buying mostly UK companies, but companies also in the Baltics. But when the financial crisis hit, we kind of changed the business concept for this private equity house. Of course, we still were running what we had, but then we also stepped into helping the banks because the banks at the time had many retail companies that they were holding and they needed to sell. So that was the role. So I went more into advisory when I worked for this company. After that, I was actually brought in to rebuild landspunken after the financial crisis. So I took part with great people there just to really reshape the biggest bank of the country that was at the time owned by the government and it still is. I actually spent 11 years at landspunken. I was at first heading the asset management site of landspunken, but then I also took over the corporate finance division and the brokerage division. And was a good time really to understand how banks work. But that brought me into credit info in the year 21. I can imagine because as you say, like there was a crisis to work through there as well. And as much as these lessons in what happened there, I think Iceland's also shown the rest of the world how to recover from those and how to treat those in a way that's got a lot more accountability and transparency than we've seen in other countries in other similar crises. So a lot of learning from that. Exactly. Always a good business case, say for business schools. And I saw the scandal and I smiled because for a small period of time, it was owned by a South African insurance company who's headquartered in the little suburb where I went to school. And so technically, at a long stretch, my mother and my brother both worked for the same company as you, whatever, the exact opposite end of the globe. But as you said, with that background, you then came to credit info. And while long-term lessons of the show will have a little bit of understanding what credit info is, what was it about the organisation that you with this sort of illustrious career thought, okay, now this is a company that I can do something with and it's worth so moving across for. Yeah, exactly. So at the time I was working for Landspunkin and because the Landspunkin was government owned, it was set at the beginning when we were reshaping the bank that we should take sustainability into the operation. And for me that meant we should take it into the investment of the bank and also on behalf of our clients. So I started really trying to understand what responsible investment means. And I got hugely involved in it because I really believed in that strategy. I thought it was something that we should do for the long term. And that kind of led me to the foundation of Iceland's SIF, which is a foundation here for sustainable investments here in Iceland. And because of this work, I could also see that our market was really lacking the sustainability data that both lenders and investors were seeking. And I knew that Kriydinfo had a huge database about all the corporates here in Iceland and that we could do something exceptional on top of it when it comes to sustainability data. And that was kind of what brought me to the company. I had always known the company. It was founded in the year 1997. And I think I was client number two at the time I was working for Scantia because the reign of the founder is just such a great person. He just explained to me the vision of Kriydinfo and I thought, "Wow, this is something that the Icelandic market is so much meeting and definitely to become a customer." Because it's a special story. It was founded in 1997 in Iceland. And at the time, Iceland was just really lacking what Kriydinfo then did because customers were so dependent on their bank. They could not go and have their Kriydinfo history moved around. And then I was following the company all those years. And I always knew what an important role the company had here in the financial industry in Iceland. And those two things kind of led me to the company. Very good decision. It's amazing. It has such a wonderful history and there's a video. I'll find the link again. I've put it in one of the early episodes we've done but with the founders talking about that vision. And I'll link that below for people to watch. But one of the things you mentioned there, which I think maybe I haven't done a good job of highlighting in the past, is that sustainability thing. Because I come from a credit risk background and credit bureaus played a part of that. And for most of my career, the credit bureaus have been credit data first. And then maybe do a try and tag on as an afterthought a little bit of sustainability. If that, most of them I don't think even bother with that at the moment. But it's actually a very core part of the credit info operation as you mentioned. So can you talk a little bit about, I guess, what credit info is doing in terms of traditional credit bureau that people might sort of be able to guess? But also what makes it different beyond just the markets that you serve? After credit info was founded, the competition in the financial industry really was boosted. So it was like power to the people after credit info was founded. So I really liked that. But of course, in the beginning it was just the normal things that credit bureaus do. As I seen, the credit worthiness, managing risk and improving glancing decisions. And our earlier business model was that that are out just credit reporting, component consumer data risk scoring and financial transparency. And we quickly became a key infrastructure player here in Iceland. And serving many other than banks like telco companies and just everyone that is lending. But in the year 2000, credit info started expanding abroad. Because we had something special that we had done in Iceland. And you could say, at the time, 1997, Iceland was a little bit behind in development compared to the US and the UK when it came to lending. And what we did was a formula that could work for other countries that didn't have something like us. So we start into our expansion. And especially into Eastern Europe, Africa, the Central Asia and then the Middle East. And this became like a defining strategy system for the company's history. And also rather than just selling software, credit info was like hasping countries to build an entire credit reporting ecosystem. And often, almost always in markets that didn't have this. So we could see so much change after we operated. And that was something that was really easy to, you know, to love. So I always love the history of credit info. What is there not to love? Yeah. And I think it's interesting because I worked for a different credit bureau and building credit bureaus in new markets. And the approach was very much, we've got this established model that we've built over, well, hundreds of years, but really like in modern terms, several decades in the US. And we got to move it and put it in this new country. And this is how we do it. And you should do the same. Whereas you were able to come with not, oh, here's something that works in a developed market, drop it in and make everybody fit. But say, we know how to build with this. Nothing. It's an important difference. Yeah. And we often did it like with the World Bank. They started trusting us because of what we were doing. So we were sort also where countries didn't have something like this. But today it just has evolved a lot. And here in Iceland, we have such a broad prototyping. For example, do solutions like know your customer. So have I see where anti-monial monitoring AMF, we have brought preventions, we do the ESG and sustainability analytics. Open banking is there, digital onboarding even. And AI driven solutions. So we are today like a FinTech company almost. We're always inventing something new. And I think it's because we have a very, very close cooperation with our core, core clients. So we can see where they are hurting. Like when we invented the sustainability platform because you were talking about that. That is nothing else than just better information to take better decisions. So it's all about risk management. If you're landing to someone, you need this additional information to do a good responsible landing. If you're investing in a case, it's also something that you need just to really deep dive into the case that you're investing in. So for me, sustainability data, doing that on top of credit info, I would say that credit info was not doing its role if it wasn't supporting the market with the sustainability data. Because we've always supported the market with all the data you need to take good decision. So that was just the core and we did it. So in 21, I stepped into this business. And one of the first things I did was just to of course, the dive and understand everything that credit info does. And for me, it was much more complex than I thought, because I was just buying some of the solutions. But then it was also bringing this into the business. And we built a platform and it's all happened running for Iceland. We have almost all the industry as clients, both the asset management houses and the banks and the pension funds. So they are buying data from us. All the companies in Iceland and this is just on top of that. It's just the additional data to take even better decisions. And because of what we're doing, people in other markets see this is something we are also lacking in the other markets. So we have started exporting this to the Baltics. We offered it in three of the Baltic countries. So that is something that they have also started doing. And when we developed something in Iceland and start sporting it, it's never plugged and played because markets are not unique between the globe. So we always need to step into that market, understand how that market works and use the same philosophy and the knowledge. But do a different solution so it's a solution that market can use. For the Baltic market, it was about building a hub for them. It's the hub for all of the countries to take into. Yeah, and I think what's maybe a summit reflected this, I was hard to separate what's credit info culture from Icelandic culture. But the difference of growing from a small country versus a big superpower, I think maybe changes what you just assume is the way the world works and say, well, we're going to keep doing the same thing. Whereas in the intro, what makes me really enjoy talking to people from credit info is because if you're just Iceland and the Baltics, you could still kind of get away with that old model of well, we'll take what works in Iceland, probably works in Scandinavia and probably works in the Baltics. And you know, once it starts warming up and becoming more tropical, we just work in the cold and northern central Europe. But you're in the Middle East, you're in the sort of West Africa. Well, places in Africa. Yeah, these are not markets where you think, oh, at Icelandic company could go, unless you had this mindset that says, we're not dragging, dropping, plug and play, this is how to build a new ecosystem. And I think makes a very different and shows through there. And I think also when you look at those structures that you spoke about the products that you're in, again, maybe because it's from day one being kind of a more modern company, but also maybe a more frin tech-minded company, you know, in other markets, we settle in our niche and we say, well, we do credit consumer credit data. And at a stretch, we might do a little bit of over banking data because that's kind of the same thing. I don't know either the credit bureaus at all. to pension funds, to asset management houses. You've understood it all looked at this as a big universal data problem to get your heads around. Just an enabler for the system, the work. Yeah, and down to things like the rewards you give to corporations in terms of kind of business performance in the market, which, yeah, again, it's something different, but once you reframe the question and you say, what is all the dimensional, I suppose, like where do you fit in the ecosystem? It starts to make a lot more sense. So yeah, maybe if we spend a little bit more time on that before we move on in terms of the that reach that you've got across the Icelandic market, it's not a market that most of us know all that well. So maybe sort of mixing it a bit of landscape of what who's doing what sort of lending, who's doing what sort of business, and where do you touch on that in the different sort of segments as credit info? Yeah, exactly. So Iceland today is really developed and we are very digitalized. So I would say the Icelandic credit and credit data landscape is just highly centralized and very digitalized as well. We are the dominant players here when it comes to credit data and the dominant provider of credit data risk. But we can see that more are stepping into this field because there are a lot of opportunities and that is a good thing. I mean, competition is always healthy. It just makes you better. So today the financial institutions are all using our credit, credit scores. It's almost no one is lending an Iceland without us being the NNAPLER. They often bring us in when they're doing something new. So for example, when the first bank did it fully automated to lend to individuals when it comes to houses, credit info was just on the floor doing that part, even though we didn't get any credit because we're like the wheel behind. But the finance institutions, they use our credit scores, they use the payment history and public records of course, and then the debt information to access lending and affordability. But the system is regulated under Icelandic data protection and consumer credit laws. So for us, the role is really to ensure that this credit data is only accessed by the ones that have the legal right to do so. And it is all about power to the people. So the people need to approve that this is being used. That is where we stand here in Iceland today. I think that's a really important part of the story as well that the consumers have that transparency to see how my data being used to make my life easier. I need some benefit from the system and some sense of who's involved. And yeah, I mean, as a lender in the past, I look at the products down to things like property valuations and just the ability to say, okay, if I'm going to lend some money to a stranger, what do I need to know? Affordability, value of the security, the credit, the score, the know your customer compliance type stuff of identity management. All under one roof just allows you to say, well, one easy to shop for, but also just in terms of everything's going to match up. I can build a model that doesn't just look at one thing. I can build a cross cross data source model. It enables so much innovation. And of course, we know that Icelandic and I guess broader Nordic companies are producing some incredible Fintech innovations that they can go global from these bases. So it's an exciting market to see. Yeah, it is. There is a lot happening. And because of the history of Kredin von Iceland, we have built a very strong brand when it comes to B2B. So we see our clients really trust us. We score very high when it comes to trust, when it comes to the quality of the data and also the accessibility of the data and the service. And this is key. So if you have all this, you can build something on top of it. So we've been building new solutions just every year. The sustainability platform is just one of it. Another great solution, it's smart decisions. There we meet the client and the client is a lender. So we make rooms for the client to fully automate their lending decisions. So we are the wheel behind that. And the client can also change the rules when something changes in the environment. For example, now we have really high interest rates. It's all about risk management. So then the client might step into the rules and make them a little tougher just because of the environment. So this is one of the solutions than the KYC. The solution is the best in the market. So really many SMEs are buying that from us and so on. It's always something new happening. This is what makes this so lively and lovely. Yeah, I mean, I guess that is that it is the trust as the most important thing there. They'd want you once you can prove that. And that's suppose another benefit of a small market being that, you know, people could get to know about it. On the risk of course being that if you were to break that trust, everybody knows just as quickly. But since we're talking positives, you know, you can see the benefit of that. And that has happened. And that was tough, especially because we were implementing a new regulation around our business. And we went just really step by step into applying to the new regulation. But the authorities, they had not updated our license. And when the regulation was valid, we had everything off to date and we did everything by the new regulation. But the authority was still running by the old license and that really hit the fan and the peer that we got was really bad. And what is difficult for me is we have now had, you know, some cases that have been posed by the authority. And we were always in the right because we were looking at the new regulation and doing like the law set. But to boost that to the press, no one is interested. They were only interested when they thought we were breaking something. It is always the way like that. And like as you've described there being just with the inquiry info, you've got this access to so much of the Icelandic finance industry. But you're also on the board of a few other businesses. So you've got an even expanded view beyond that. As you look, as you say, not the easiest of economic times at the moment, but as you look across Iceland, but also, I suppose, the broader region that you look into as well. What are some of the trains and activities, the things we should be watching out for? Are you seeing things change over the last few years and beyond? Yes. Well, it has surprised me that defaults are not rising because of the interest rate that is here in Iceland. So we've been watching that really, really carefully, but we cannot see it affecting the companies. And I think it's because of the experience that companies had when the finance of crisis hit. Everyone has been quite careful when it comes to adding loans to their businesses. And companies have been saving. You could say the same with individuals. So the economy has been going well, even though we have those high interest rates. And this is something we are tracking really carefully. And because, you know, if you want to have a good economy, you need good companies. So we're always tracking companies to see how that is going. And we also like to put the shine or the light to the ones that are really, really doing well. So every year, we have like a list of the best-run companies in Iceland. We issue this list and this is getting really popular. It's only about two percent of the whole company environment that gets this award. But we want to really put light to the companies that are doing so well. It's something that people don't know about because those companies are not often in the press. And the companies that are all around the country and they are in all kinds of industries. So it's the phishing industry, of course. The tourist industry has been going very well in Iceland after Covid. The building industry has also been going really well and the retailers and the importers. So those are the companies we are shining light to. But now we can see some stress when it comes to the building industry in Iceland. That is getting really stressful because of everything is rising. So when you're building a house, everything costs more. So it's just something that is happening, I think, globally. Because of of course, there is a crisis going on with all the wars and for us, it's created info. We are operating in countries that are in a very bad position. We are in Ukraine. We have operations in all man. When that was sitting down in Southeast, we also had some people in Dubai even. So of course, we see what is happening globally. And in Iceland, we are not isolated. So also hitting us in flesh and in rising. So yeah, there are some worries around the economy going forward. And for us, it's all about risk management and we have the data and it's just so important to really what closely what you're doing when it comes to landing or investing. Yeah, I mean, it underlines those risks because the world is so connected now. Of course, created info as an organization is global. If we just look in general as somewhere like Iceland, we're geographically is among the most isolated of places, you know, a few hundred years ago could happily ignore anything else happening beyond the borders whereas now, you know, a war in the Middle East closes the streets of Ramos and. Yeah, you can see it's just on the stock market, it hits very nice months, bedtime. Which I, yeah, again, just more reason to have good data that is not just looking at the historic payment patterns, but everything else that you've been able to pull under that umbrella. So for people listening, it's not a huge audience in Iceland, but you just say the credit info model has as moved around the world and is in a number of different markets as well. So if anyone listening, it would like to learn more about the business overall, we should they look and then in particular if they're interested in what you're doing in Iceland, is that the same website or or kind of where should people go to to learn more or start a conversation. We are on LinkedIn, we're really active there and we are pushing everything that we're doing to the LinkedIn site. We just got a new website for the whole globe. There is a lot of educational material there. For Icelanders, we are hosting a lot of educational meetings just constantly and we always push those to the to the web and of course we do a newsletter for our Icelandic clients and we are really, you know, a knowledge company. So we're always pushing out our knowledge. I think we have a leading knowledge when it comes to risk management, but we also have the best experts when it comes to sustainability. I would like to mention my colleague Ren Krietasson is the founder. I would like to mention my colleague Ren Smaury Atlason, who's working for us here in credit info. He's doing the global work when it comes to sustainability also for us as a company, but then also leading, you know, other countries when it comes to sustainability data. And yeah, risk management, I would like to mention my colleague Gunnar Gunnarson. He is a leading person when the cost of risk management and very short for when it comes to like conferences abroad. So you can listen to him in English. As in Icelandic of course. Perfect. Yeah, and I'll put links to that where the websites and your linked in the show notes as well. As I said, we've had a few guests from time to time over the course of the show. I think this is going to be episode 199, about four or five from credit info along the way. So very appreciative of your time, but also your colleagues time over the past for joining me. Always interesting stories that are coming along and you're definitely encourage people to go and see those websites and some of those solutions that are quite far beyond what we expect of a credit bureau. So if you think, what credit bureaus do, go have a look there and see some of these other products sustainability and beyond that might change your mind and get you interested. So yeah, thank you so much for making the time today. I've really loved hearing more about the Icelandic roots of credit info and kind of what's happening today there. Thank you, Brent and Anna. I just must say in the close, please, please know your credit score. Please watch out for your credit score if it drops because having a good credit score is just about having a good life. So I'm really thankful for what you're doing because it's so important to educate the market about their spendness. We skipped over that one in the in the main talk, but yeah, it's one of those things that can happen very quickly and then take a long time to clean up and, you know, I'm not the most organized person in the world and, you know, you get an inbox flooded with hundreds of things. You forget to pay something and suddenly months later you're still struggling with this or you worst case scenario trying to get a mortgage down the line and find out that $50 you didn't pay a dentist appointment is now going to add thousands to the cost of a mortgage. So it's one of those little bits and it's so easy to do today, so much easier than in the past. So a really good message that we probably should say in much more of our episodes. So thanks for reminding on that. Thank you for the opportunity to speak about what I love. And so as Häftner said, the roots of Credit info are in Iceland, but they have businesses around the world, businesses that learn from the top, but also share learnings back to the top. And one of the market she spoke about was the Baltics and that's where we'd like to go next. We're going to go and see what is happening in Estonia, what's happening in the neighboring Baltic countries and talk about both the innovations that are happening there and what's coming next. Lari, Tom and Eric, Regional Director, Continental Europe at the Credit Info Group. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Lari, we've looked at the Baltics once or twice on the show, but it has been a while back. So I want to take advantage of your experience in the region before we get deep into what you're doing at Credit Info Group. You've spent your career there and it's an interesting time in Estonia's life, but also the region's life. So before we talk about what you're doing now, would you mind talking about that early career? What you started working on, maybe what you learned along the way and kind of how it shaped you into what you do today. In particular, I'm quite interested in your kind of coming from the IT background into team management, which although for such an IT heavy industry and have been for such a long time, you don't always see people who's come from a specialty there moving into management. So I think it's nice to flag that as well, but yeah, let me not pre-intuitive too much. Talk about your early career and kind of what you were doing in the early days and how it's changed how you think today. If you look back at my work experience, work history is I've started my career in the European launches, non-performing loans, debt collection, tax advisory company called Interum, which is still one of the European largest entities on this area still. Basically, I started as a tax advisor summer intern back in early 2000s, or mid 2000s, where I quickly transitioned from the tax advisory summer job into a permanent position and threw that into an IT focused role. So my earlier career as your brand-of-know-highlight, it was purely working in international companies, working in the domain of IT with product led activities as well. And at one point after working in the company for about six, seven years, I transitioned into a regional IT director. So that gave me when I was previously focused or occupied with a stonial market, then I transitioned into the Baltic market, a stonial at Velesania, and that basically I relayed regional IT teams and initiatives and the transformation program for about, now if the memory serves correctly, about three years. And that basically was an interesting time from growing up in the early stages of stonial because the Baltics got the independence in the early 90s. So the first 10 or 20 years, you had a very fast growing markets, emerging markets, and so that might sort of meet 2000s where my journey or career started in the Baltics. Yeah, it's a such an interesting market for me because I'm from South Africa and we transitioned to proper democracy pretty much the same sort of time. So different kind of historical baggage, but the same sort of time getting liberation. But opposite ends of the world, it's sort of culturally very different. I don't think I'd heard of Estonia until in my MBA class, we used to do a case study on the digitization of the market and the success that Estonia had in those early internet days, I guess in leapfrogging some of the technologies and leveraging the technological and educational skill set that had been there within the Soviet days that you were able to have a turn into, so rapidly modernizing country. And it was really interesting for me to start exploring that space because yeah, it's a small country. I mean all the Baltic countries are small in terms of population. And so maybe people don't hear the stories very often, but a huge amount of change happened in that space. And obviously it's an IT person. You were in a front row seat for that. Talk to me about what it was about the credit info group that said, okay, this is where I want to spend. Sometimes this is going to be the challenge that I'm going to take on. What did you see there that made you move that move across? Yes, so working in interim, I was there as a regional IT director and then I was contacted by the former regional manager at this time for credit info group, credit info Baltic region. And the request was quite simple that, the lot, we are market leading entities in Estonia, Latvia, Latvia, and Australia actively working in the credit bureau domain. But we are siloed or meaning that each country has been independently growing, operating and building their solutions. We would like to do sort of a digital IT transformation where we start working together on a regional level, consolidating, finding synergies on the region. So I think that is what, if I look back at Brandon, that was perhaps the call or a highlight for me sort of a challenge that coming in, marketing companies, well known market entities on the market. But how do I take these three separate units, three separate legal entities? And how do we consolidate and make for a more unified credit info in the Baltic region? And through that be faster, more nimble and be able to invest more. than each country independently. So I think that was sort of the area or a question that the former region manager that attracted me, I came to a credit info and seven years from that, I'm still here. - Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because that policy region is kind of a connected group within the bigger connected group of Europe all going through a huge amount of change. I know, probably explore things in two directions. One, let's start with credit info because it gives you that birds eye view. And I want to take advantage of that birds eye view to hear how you've seen the industry change in a minute. But first, maybe for people who don't know, I think you're about the fourth or fifth guests I've had on the show over 200 episodes, but maybe not everybody's heard what credit info does. So before we talk about what you've seen there, maybe just at a higher level, share for us what the group does in the region and kind of what that looks like. And then I'm going to go back and ask you to tell me about what you've seen in that elevated position. As you've seen the sort of last seven years of change, what is most interesting or most exciting there. But first, credit info group, what wants to do in the region, what's it look like and kind of what's its main goal and mission? - Yeah, so credit info group. Just so what we are basically doing is a credit bureau. Credit bureau basically in definition is that we are working with various data, data sources, let's say positive data. For one example, positive data is different obligations, loans, credit products that a private consumer or legal entity might have, let's say, mortgage, car loan, credit card, post loan, et cetera, et cetera. And we are working also with negative data. Negative data basically is, I don't know, unpaid invoices, unpaid loan products, different kinds of obligations that the person has not completed. So basically, negative data, positive data, added on top of that different kinds of business information, company houses, population registers, et cetera, et cetera. So we are sort of a data hub or a data supermarket where all of the different data is gathered together and then we are sort of helping to facilitate in each given market that data sharing, that data change to the banks, to the financial institutions, to the whole market as general. So on the large, you can think of us like the Transvianians, Equifaxies, Dunham Bradstreet, so of the global level, which I think many of the listeners of this podcast have heard about and we are mostly operating in the Eastern European part, Central Southern European part, but very much active also in Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asian Caribbean sector. So why, why a range of countries where we operate and all of those are quite different. So I'm managing our continental Europe region, which I'm able to deep dive in this show we have today. - Yeah, I always like speaking to credit info because for me at least it's got the most interesting mix of countries, you know, the Baltics are quite, in some ways at least conceptually linked to Iceland where the group started, you can kind of imagine sort of Northern Europe and Central Europe as the Baltics, you know, they fit together in a logical way, but then you throw in West Africa, you throw in the Caribbean, then the Middle East, there's such a diversity of countries you operate in, which I always find fascinating. But today of course we're talking about the Baltic region and that kind of central European space, where so much is happening and one of the things that's happening are due to what you've just talked about there, the positive data. So, you know, I've spent myself sort of 10 years on my career and credit bureaus, but maybe not everyone's familiar with that term and technology. As you said, positive data is the sort of data that tells you what balances you've got, which payments you've made, the good things that consumers are doing, not just the blacklist sort of traditional, most simplified version of a credit bureau. And as credit bureaus develop around the world and depending on cultures and norms and just what's being prioritized, certain markets will have positive data, the US, the UK, you know, the big credit bureaus, but other markets will not have positive data. And so fair number of countries in Europe were negative only, Australia went, it was negative only until somewhat recently. Or taking on a positive data is a relatively new step as well for the Baltic. So it talks me about what that encompassed in terms of kind of the project, how you got it done. But also what does that mean for landers in your markets? - Yeah, so if we now split the Baltic region into three, we have had or been working with positive data in Latvia, Australia now for plus 10 years, 15 even close. So both markets have the positive data. We are the leading partner for credit institutions, banks, financial institutions, other players on the market for the positive data. So we have in other countries across the world where we are supporting them, we are quietly, strongly working with the positive data in Latvia, Australia. One country stands out and one country is Estonia. Estonia is the only country in the European Union together with France that does not have a positive registry or a positive data sharing at the moment in place. Again, I won't go into the historical details, why is it so? We have been working with credit in for close to 10 years now with the financial sector and with the public sector in creating a positive register in Estonia. And I'm happy now that in the year of 2026, we are now finally reaching a stage that we have a positive lobby in the parliament before going into the second reading, which will hopefully, if it passes through the parliament, the reading is in the upcoming days, weeks and months, finally, create in Estonia positive registry that will go live in 2029. Now, the viewers and the listeners might think, "Okay, why is it good? What's the benefit?" The benefit is basically any kind of credit product, loan product that the bank or financial institution is giving out. It needs to double check, validate your background, your capability to pay your negative data. So it will become significantly easier to do the loan process or credit word-in-ass process once you have the positive data. So we see that the market should be faster, more efficient, the customer journey expanding, increasing, and potentially more competition bringing coming to the market. So very interesting times we are in and actively working with all of the stakeholders to make sure that we have a positive registry, a global passing and coming in 29. Yeah, it is such an interesting question because obviously society's attitude to data has changed so much since 20 years ago. And so some markers have gone forward and backwards in how they look at that. But again, I'm biased. I come from a credit bureau world, positive data for me. I like to think of it as when you're driving and if you get a speeding phone, is there anyone I've driven down the road under the speed limit 400 times and the one time I wasn't paying attention, I get a fine? Is there not some sort of balance here? And that's kind of what the data does as well, that maybe you missed one payment six months ago. We are already keeping negative data. I just see one negative payment. Where is you've made 50 loans that you've paid over your lifetime all on time every time? The one thing looks like an outline and we can sort of explain it away. And it allows us to much more completely measure the risk of a consumer. So for 99% of consumers, your credit profile is better off with that data. Of course, there are very legitimate reasons, countries in countries like France very fiercely protected reasons. But when I was in Denmark 50 years ago, now there was this discussion as well. I was like, where do we go and here privacy versus the value of the data red? And the region's been going through some change. A really interesting time for Lenders. I didn't realize it was only a stone yet. It's quite interesting that even amongst it's kind of very close neighbors, it's still to learn. So that's a story with tracking and anybody who's got an interest in that space, want to keep track of because it does when done right, spare on a lot of innovation. So I imagined that in 2029, 2030, we might expect a number of interesting products and business ideas coming out on the back of that. It's not the only other news of the region. I see in Latvia, you've also taken ownership of one of the bureaus. So I talked to you about a piece of news. Yes, so Latvia is the newest family member as we call it in the credit for Baltic region. We found it Latvia together with the major banks 14 years ago. So that was at that time, credit info was there to be a solution partner, be a consultant, be a person that knows how to set up the positive registry. So we found it the company. We have been a majority shareholder since then. The company has been developing and the market has been developing nicely. So if you, let's say for listeners, the Latvian market perhaps has been lacking behind the stone and the trade in terms of access to the data, the credit given to the market by, I don't know, three to five years. But so we see currently Latvian market in terms of volumes, portfolio growth is our highest growing market. market in the in the public region. And thanks to those growth numbers, thanks to the success we have had with the majority banks, we decided now to approach the minority shareholders and have a full acquisition of KiB Latvia, which is the local brand name for our entity there. And since March this year, we are the 100% owners of KiB Latvia. And what this will allow us is to further invest into the region, the further invest into the country, because Baltic markets are quite similar. So if we are able to invest more in Latvia, if we are able to rebrand or consolidate operations across the Baltic, that will help us to drive more value, more solutions, more services, and Baltic to our major clients and partners in the region. So again, very interesting times, helping us consolidate, helping us be more, let's say, one credit in for across the three countries we are operating and really delivering more value of solutions, services in the upcoming years so that the whole market and all of the stakeholders on the respective markets benefit of it. Well, maybe it's a good time to talk about what that region looks like, because it is a similar, but of course, three distinct countries with three very long histories. I remember I spoke to you Katarina in Lithuania a two long ago in this show, and doing research there, I feel like it's a thousand-year-old history as a country with many changes in fortunes among them. So proud local countries, but also very connected. So it's an interesting region, I guess, to look across from your position, seeing these different countries, areas somewhere ahead and some behind it, some are learning from each other. What are the stories that you're sort of interested in that we haven't spoken about yet? How do you see those three big countries in the Baltics? Yes, so if I look at Baltic markets, I give you some statistics first of all, GDP growth per capita. Let's take 2010 versus 2026. Cross the region has been in the range of 150 to 200%. So if we would look at benchmarking, I don't know, France Italy, we have grown per capita about only 25 to 30%. Okay, then the next question might be okay. Small economy is growing fast. What does it mean? We were politics GDP per capita was only about 30% France in 2010. We are now 70% per capita of France at this moment. So again, it shows that the markets are agile, the markets are fast growing, and we are breaching the gap, let's say, on a European union level of per capita gaining up to the leading West and European countries as such. So what has driven it? I think it's sort of digitalization being fast, being agile, keeping control on the bureaucracy, as such, we have significant amount of IT unicorns per capita. So if you look, I don't know, Estonia is done official unicorn or IT unicorn per capita country, companies like Skype, Bolt, Wise, Pythrae, Verif, etc. All come or originate from Estonia. So many of the listeners might be using either Bolt or Wise or Skype services in the past. Perhaps they have not understood or known that it is coming from the Baltics or it's coming from Estonia. So that is, like I said, that's been our game, what we have been improving, and pretend I'll give you a few examples. I always like few stories, what the listeners might appreciate. If you ask me, when did I last get the paper invoice to my mailbox to be paid five, ten years ago? Basically, do not get any mail at all. Then, the next question is, when did I last pay an invoice manually? I don't know, once per month, most of my invoices are paid automatically and all of the workforce or workflow is working fine. When did I last visit the bank or the DMV? I don't know, two or three years ago. So, again, just to illustrate, everything is digitalinated, everything is efficient, everything is quick, and that is sort of making the economy as a very interesting place to be in the AI native, AI boom that we have at the moment. So, that has been, I think, post-Ajal Nimble digitally oriented, has been one of the key drivers in our growth for the past 15 and 30 years. Yeah, and certainly from an outside perspective, the change we've seen the first time I came to the region as a tourist was probably 2009, 2010. And it was marketed in those days as a cheap location, you know, somewhere you can go and get cheap, essentially, get away if you're living one of the more expensive European cities. And you could use it for not notice that's what innovation you talk about because if you speak to wise now, you know, London will claim them as one of London's Fintech unicorns or Skype Swedish. These incredible businesses are being built in the Baltics and then yeah, when they need huge amounts of capital, they may relocate for convenience to a bigger location, but that innovation is happening as you say down in that space. And we were there for years. My brother was up from South Africa and we wanted to take his kids somewhere there would be guaranteed snow. We almost missed it somehow, though, though it was such a late start to winter this year, but luckily they did get a little bit of snow in Riga and until then over over years, even years day. But the infrastructure, the setup there is, it's incredible, the land at the airport, you can call the balt, you can get around with just using your phone, you don't need any of these things. And yeah, I mean, the last time we were there, so it wasn't that long ago, but I suppose getting on that 16, 17 years ago. But when we went to Vilnius in Lithuania, the one place I think that I've traveled where there was no real English, even in the tourist office in the in the main train station, we had to mime an aeroplane to get directions and make sure we caught the right pass to the airport because they didn't speak English. And I felt like, oh, this is so far sort of removed from the modern economy still, but now you go back and within 15 years, it's incredibly different. And I think what the Baltics are doing very well as well is, yes, small populations, but across Europe, and I imagine the same is true in the US, but people go to work in London, they go in work in Paris, they go in work in the States, they come back, they've seen, you know, their home cities grow and develop so much that they grade locations to bring back that experience to them, build something new at cheaper than Silicon Valley prices, cheaper than London prices, build a business that business can pass through around Europe or move again. And so suddenly it's got this really vibrant economy in terms of that kind of innovation scene, but the financial services to well above what the country of five million people might otherwise expect. So for anyone who hasn't been, you know, for me, it's always a place I like to current, good remind as I say, like the timing is very similar to South Africa and it's interesting to see what's being able to be achieved on the side of the world with that digitization. One of the things I think credit info is really good at actually for that as well is the amount of well information, but stories and examples and things that you share on your websites. There is credit info, the group wide one, but also I know within the countries, some sites as well where you share more specific information for that region. So if anybody wants to learn more about the Baltics and your work in that region or specifically one of the countries, we're maybe they're operating in, where can they go to learn what's happening and to follow along online. Yeah, so I think the two channels I would recommend everybody to pay attention is we still have our corporate website, credit info.com that has all of the regional websites, the blog posts, the news posts ready. So I would recommend visiting that and the usual other suspect is LinkedIn. Happy for everybody to subscribe, save the link and like the post. So those are the two main channels where let's say anybody interested in our region, everybody interested in our operations will be able to keep track on. So follow and subscribe on both of these locations and if there's any other more interesting engagements or discussions you'll want to have in the region, always happy to have discussions, have a coffee when anybody coming from a far away is coming to Estonia, Latvia, Lissana. So as Brendan said, the region has been developing very nicely. He has positioned ourselves as quite nice tourist friendly countries during the northern part. The nature is beautiful. Again, I've been to South Africa once. This is sort of a neck to neck which is more nicer, but both of the countries have their hidden gems. So really recommend visiting. So you won't regret it. Yeah, actually, we didn't quite have enough time, but I've seen some nice winter wildlife opportunities to go explore. As I said, it was a weirdly late winter this year, but some incredible good space and outdoor activities to do in the winter as well in particular and fantastic old town still visit. So yeah, just from a pure tourist point of view, obviously also a lot of outsourced hubs and analytics labs, AI labs and things operating therefore for companies in more expensive markets. So many reasons for people to pop out and visit very easy to access Latvia's in particular very well connected on the global flight maps that Estonia is very close as well. So I encourage you on to consider it to look at the websites and LinkedIn, but I'll just link them in the show notes as well to make that easy. And so, yeah, stand on top of those stories. I think super to hear about the big changes happening there in particular at Move Restonia, I think it's a market worth proven ability to build unicorns, proven ability to innovate. To now be giving that market and those companies a big chunk of fresh data, I think we can expect some exciting things in 2029, albeit we don't have to wait that long. So, thank you so much, Larry, for joining me. Always like to touch base with credit info into here what you guys are doing. So, yeah, thank you for making the time. Yes, thank you so much. What's the pleasure? And thank you all for listening. Please do look for and follow the show on your favorite podcast platform and share the updates widely on LinkedIn, where lending nerds are found in our largest concentration. Plus, send me a connection request while you're there. This show is written and recorded by myself, Brendan LeGrange, in Brighton, England, and edited by Fina Cholson of FC Productions. Show Music is by I Am Wake, and you can find Show Notes and written transcripts at www.artilinmoney2strangers.show. Or just www.htlmts.show. And I'll see you again in next Thursday. [Music]