SPARK-Interfax

Main articles:

• Big Data
• Data mining Intelligent data analysis

SPARK is a reference and analytical system for companies created by the Interfax Group for checking counterparties, assessing tax, credit risks, managing receivables, and identifying affiliations. SPARK aims to develop services that allow customers to comply with legal requirements, reduce risks, and analyze large amounts of data. SPARK develops a system of scorings that allow you to determine the level of reliability of a potential counterparty and the level of its financial sustainability. The system is based on the most modern technologies, flexible software development methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, DevOps, UX), knowledge of information sources and customer needs, innovations in the field of analytics (mathematical models based on graph theory, linguistic analysis, etc.), as well as the use of Big Data technology, including machine learning, data mining, ETL.

SPARK is used by employees of economic security, risk, internal audit and control, marketing, M&A, as well as compliance officers, lawyers, financial directors and financial controllers. Every year, the system processes more than 500 million requests from tens of thousands of users.

2022: Launch of "Reputation Assessment" service

On March 24, 2022, Interfax announced that it had supplemented the functionality of the SPARK-Interfax system with an expanded module for analyzing business reputation and early risk detection from  media materials, which was created on the basis of data from the Scan-Interfax reputation management and media analysis system.

The Business Reputation Assessment service allows you to automatically track mentions in the media by user lists of companies and people and receive reports with "risky" news daily. Using the service reduces the time to monitor, analyze and evaluate the situation on the object and eliminates the need to use several systems in the operation - information is available in single window mode.

"Based on the needs of customers, we optimize our IT products, combining them into the Interfax ecosystem. The connection of the presented service will allow you to quickly and with high accuracy track emerging problems throughout the list of business partners thanks to the enriched data of our analytical system, "- said SPARK-Interfax Executive Director Alexei Kobin.

The updated functionality also complements the standard capabilities of SPARK-Interfax to search for affiliations. The Group and Beneficiary Newsgroups feature, as part of a single request, allows you to identify hidden links  based on news references . Media reports do not guarantee 100% affiliation, but may serve as an occasion for further investigations.

"Media monitoring is almost a mandatory risk assessment tool for any security professional. Often the first signals about negative events in the company appear precisely in the media space. Risk analysis by media allows you to detect growing problems before they acquire the status of legal facts. Timely detection of reputational risks, both in-house and in-house risks from suppliers and partners, minimizes business losses, which becomes even more important in the current economic environment, " Yulia Mikhailova, Director of Development of Skan-Interfax, commented on the launch of the service.

Unlike the standard module "News and Media Messages," which is available in the basic functionality of the SPARK system, the expanded module provides access to the news archive by company or person for 5 years instead of one year and makes it possible to clarify search queries, receive monitoring data on the portfolio of counterparties by e-mail.

The Scan-Interfax media and social media monitoring system, on the basis of which the Business Reputation Assessment service was created, aggregates more than 60 thousand sources, which include news agencies, newspapers, sites, blogs, regional media, paid publications and closed tapes available only by subscription.

The news is scanned according to 65 risk factors, which largely correspond to the factors creditno-financial risk and potentially problematic topics: economic and criminal crimes, court proceedings and investigative actions, bank fraud non-compliance with business ethics, labor conflicts, consumer claims, falling under, sanctions deterioration of financial condition, potential bankruptcy , etc. For each individual or legal entity in the service, an archive of publications for the past 5 years is available.

SPARK-Interfax  is a system for assessing credit risks and ensuring business security in the Russian service market. It is used to check counterparty companies, manage risks and receivables. According to a survey conducted by Deloitte, 71.5% of large and medium-sized businesses use the SPARK system to verify the reliability of partners.

2020

Integration with financial marketplace for Развивай.рф business

Financial marketplace for business "Развивай.рф," a joint project of Mail.ru Group and ВЭБ.РФ, announced in June 2020 the integration of API SPARK data.

The Развивай.рф platform helps legal entities and individual entrepreneurs look for loans, guarantees and other financial services. Using the SPARK API system, the service more accurately selects offers taking into account information about borrowers, as well as conducts an interim risk assessment and provides partners - banks, leasing companies and development organizations - with verified information and high-quality applications for financial products.

"At the moment, we have implemented more than 300 integration solutions with customers and partners, most of them are in the banking and financial sectors. The financial sector has always made increased requirements for such key parameters as performance, safety and fault tolerance, and we are confident that we meet these criteria, "said Alexey Kobin, executive director of the SPARK-Interfax system, stressing that" preliminary scoring based on SPARK data is one of the most important tools for our partners to decide on the reliability of the applicant. "

Free access for SMB companies during quarantine

On March 31, 2020, Interfax Group announced the provision of free access to the SPARK system for small and medium-sized businesses for the period of quarantine restrictions.

Many small and medium-sized businesses are now in a difficult situation, while now it is more important than ever for them to quickly learn about changes from their counterparties, effectively manage receivables, and monitor changes in the market. In addition, companies are forced to relocate their employees to remote work, and they need additional jobs. Taking all this into account, we have temporarily opened free access to the SPARK-Interfax system for small and medium-sized businesses. I am sure that this will help business minimize losses, reduce risks, and continue to effectively interact with counterparties, "said Roman Laba, Deputy General Director of Interfax, SPARK Project Manager.

Free access to the SPARK system is provided for a period of 2 weeks from the moment of registration and confirmation of the application on the website spark-interfax.ru.

SPARK functionality is also available in the mobile application. You can check the status and details of the company or individual entrepreneurs, get statements from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Unified State Register of Legal Entities, reports "SPARK-Risks" and "SPARK-Profile" for assessing the financial condition, security of counterparties and receivables management.

2017: Integration with Tender Pro

In July 2017, GK TenderPro"" and Interfax"" announced the launch of a joint service that will allow ETP customers Tender.Pro to comprehensively assess the reliability of counterparties.

The SPARK counterparty verification and business risk assessment system provides up-to-date information about legal entities and individual entrepreneurs based on official data, own information sources and databases of international corporations. All these data allow you to quickly and reliably check counterparties.

Thanks to the presented service, "Tender Pro" users, in addition to basic information (company name, OGRN, TIN, OKPO, OKVED, status, management, registration period, ownership form, address), will be able to receive a report on the most important changes in the status of customers and partners (bankruptcy, change in management, joining another company, etc.).

The SPARK System Scorings show the main risks faced by companies help to understand how secure the choice of a new counterparty is:

• The "Due Diligence Index" indicates the likelihood that the company is a "one-day firm";
• "Financial Risk Index" - the probability of insolvency of the company;
• "Index of payment discipline" - the timeliness of payment by the company of bills.

The appearance of a negative factor in the counterparty's data is reflected in the value of the index, transferring it to the "red zone."

Full information about potential partners will help customers of the Tender Pro system make correct and reasonable decisions.

The service for TenderPro customers is provided free of charge.