ICAP CRIF (previously ICAP S.A. group of companies), with 59 years of successful presence in Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus, is the market leader in Credit Risk & Business Information Solutions in Southeastern Europe.
As of December 23rd, 2021, ICAP CRIF is a wholly owned company of CRIF. It is an important regional hub within CRIF Group and is organized and operates as a single entity under one common Management Team.
Ιt provides innovative solutions to a wide range of business challenges, which are grouped into 5 categories: Business Information & Credit Risk Solutions, Credit Rating Agency Services, Marketing & Sales Solutions, Technology Solutions & Advanced Analytics and Consulting Services.
ICAP CRIF S.A., is the only company in Greece that has been recognized as an External Credit Assessment Institution (ECAI) by the Bank of Greece, as well as, certified as a Credit Rating Agency (CRA), by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).
CRIF, the end-to-end knowledge company
Specialized in credit information systems (SIC), business information and credit management solutions, CRIF offers to companies, banks, finance companies, confidiums and insurance companies qualified support at every stage of the customer relationship. With innovation at the heart of their constant development, CRIF's solutions enable them to anticipate market developments, improve business performance, reduce credit and business risks, prevent fraud, and optimize their processes while containing costs.
Thanks to the work of nearly 6.000 professionals working in more than 70 Group companies, today more than 82.000 businesses, 10.500 banks and financial companies, 1.000 insurance companies and 1.000.000 consumers worldwide use CRIF services in 50 Countries.
Founded in Bologna in 1988, CRIF has a significant global presence and operates in four continents. To date, it is the leader in Italy in solutions supporting the provision and management of retail credit and, thanks to the skills acquired in more than 30 years of activity in highly competitive markets, it is the first group in continental Europe in the banking credit information sector and one of the main operators globally in integrated business & commercial information and credit & marketing management services.
Thanks to constant investments in innovation, technology and information security CRIF is today a leader in the management of information and rating systems for businesses worldwide.
Commitment to sustainable development
Thanks to its experience, CRIF has also taken a key role in developing practices, models, tools and services for sustainable business development, making available to the market a suite of services designed to integrate ESG factors into Procurement and Risk Management models and processes. Adopting an ESG-conscious corporate policy is a choice that is rewarded by investors and consumers, which is why CRIF helps companies to direct their efforts in that direction and to communicate their sensitivity to these issues, through standardized, digital and global tools that go precisely to measure corporate commitment and results achieved.
Consistent with this approach, CRIF has in turn embarked on a path of integrating sustainability into corporate strategies, policies and processes, confirming how sustainability is at the heart of its corporate policies with the aim of driving growth and sustainable development for its clients.
The methodology of CRIF Ratings
CRIF Ratings, a CRIF Group company, is a credit rating agency authorized to assign credit ratings to non-financial firms resident in the European Union in the form of issuer and bond issue ratings.
The agency is supervised by ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority), the European authority overseeing the proper operation of financial markets.
Since 2020, CRIF Ratings has updated its methodology to include environmental and social factors in its ratings, becoming one of the points of reference in Italy in the ESG assessment of companies of all sizes and sectors.
The TranspArEEnS Project
CRIF is a partner in the ambitious European project, TranspArEEnS (Mainstreaming Transparent Assessment Of Energy Efficiency In Environmental Social Governance Ratings), coordinated by Ca' Foscari University Venice and funded with €1.5 million by the European Commission.The goal of the project is to reinvigorate sustainable investments by companies, even the smallest ones, and thus facilitate the ecological transition in an inclusive dimension by offering the market a standard model for transparently and rigorously assessing ESG factors.
A global presence
Synesgy's methodology and platform enable to assess the environmental, social, and governance sustainability of companies around the world and obtain a consistent ESG sustainability score that allows companies to be compared according to global standards.
In the world's major economies, Synesgy has also developed methodologies, assessments and processes consistent with local specificities: List countries.
Safety and Certifications
CRIF pursues major investments annually to ensure the highest standards of information security and quality of solutions.
A list of certifications obtained can be found on the CRIF website : https://www.crif.it/chi-siamo/le-membership-e-i-riconoscimenti/