The state of company data in Poland — key changes in the past 5 years

The interview with the CEO of the largest Polish Economic Information Bureau, KRD BIG SA, and founders of RynekInformacji.pl, the only business information specific news platform in Poland

How the business information market has changed in Poland over the past five years and are Polish entrepreneurs more eager to reach for it? What has been already improved in public registers, and what is still to be done? How do Poland compare with the rest of Europe?

Experts invited to the interview agree that Poland is going in the right direction. There is growing awareness in the business sector. The value of economic information also is growing. There have been introduced a few key acts that allow for faster data flow, and the access to digitized financial statements visible on the horizon positively prognosticates the future. However, a lot of work is still ahead of us. Not only in the sense of opening further public registers, but also educating entrepreneurs on how and when they can use it to ensure the safety of their businesses.

As part of the next article from the Transparent Five cycle for the 5th anniversary of our company, we present an interview with economic information experts — Martin Kaczmarski, president of the consortium Kaczmarski Group, which includes Poland’s largest Economic Information Bureau, KRD BIG SA, and Patrycja Hrabiec-Hojda and Justyna Trzeciakowska, editors of the Rynek Informacji and founders of Infobrokerska.pl, which have been professionally providing infobroker services for companies of various sizes for over 10 years and are training Polish entrepreneurs to use business information.

How looks the mentality of Polish entrepreneurs today and how it looked 5 years ago when it comes to using economic information? Do they reach for it more often?

Martin Kaczmarski: The mentality of entrepreneurs changes with each passing year, because from year to year, we observe an increase in the number of business reports downloaded by companies that use our services. In 2013, there were 17.5 millions, a year later almost 21 millions, and in 2017, nearly 34 millions. After the first half of 2018, it can be assumed that this year entrepreneurs will download from us about 37–38 million reports on entrepreneurs and consumers.

But unfortunately this growing awareness is not evenly distributed throughout the companies. We have a clear difference of attitudes between large enterprises and the SME sector. While in the first group the economic information is a standard element of risk assessment, in the case of the SMEs, we still face risk at their own request. Recent research by Kaczmarski Inkasso indicates that almost 50 percent of companies in the SME sector do not verify their contractors, risking that they will never receive payment for their products or services. Still, many small entrepreneurs think that it is not proper to check the contractor, because that one may feel offended and after all, we should all just trust each other. And at the same time they have problems with maintaining financial liquidity, because customers do not pay them on time or at all. And this is a huge task to do — change the mentality of this group.

Huge and time-consuming, it’s true. So maybe instead of asking how many entrepreneurs use economic information, we should ask if those who already use it know how to do it? There has not been a thoroughly reliable study in Poland on a representative group, but certainly Mrs. Justyna and Patrycja, based on their training experience, can comment on the subject.

Justyna Trzeciakowska: Every day I get the impression that there is still a lot to do and make up in the field of educating about economic information and its use in business. I still get a phone calls from a freshly baked entrepreneurs who ask when they will be assigned a company identification number. On the other hand, as an infobroker agency, we receive inquiries from people who are just thinking about opening a company and want to better understand the market they are targeting.

Patrycja Hrabiec-Hojda: In other words, the awareness of entrepreneurs that it is worth using information before making a business decision is growing.

And how does the use of company data look like? Do entrepreneurs get economic information primarily from free public registers or after western model, recognize the value of paid tools?

JT.: The preferences of the choice of free or commercial solutions depends of course on the budget, but also on the individual needs of the company, the specifics of its operation, client portfolio, etc. Other needs for verification of contractors have software houses that provides solutions for companies, and other distributor of cosmetics for hairdressers, although both companies operate in b2b.

Personally I try to avoid generalizing that everyone in the west is willing to pay for access to company information, but Polish doesn’t. Mostly because in individual countries the level of access to data and company documents is different. In many areas, we can — and I think we are starting — chasing our southern neighbors.

So you think that Poland is world-class? What is the state of our national economic information compared to abroad?

MK.: Economic information as defined in Poland does not exist in Western Europe, where we deal rather with credit registers. The scope of data provided by Polish BIGs (Economic Information Bureaus) is definitely broader.

PPH.: In addition, there are areas in which Poland turns out to be a leader, eg the availability of online registers in English.

However, there is always “something” to do. What Polish open data business still needs?

PHH.: There is still a lack of financial information about companies in Poland. Slowly this state is changing. From this year, companies are starting to finally submit financial reports in a digital version, which will slowly fill the register. However, there is no historical information about companies. In commercial registers, we can follow, for example, changes in the National Court Register, but the official website does not provide such a possibility. We still have gaps in the economic information market, eg in relation to the agricultural sector or activities registered with the support of business incubators.

There is also a lack of centralized information about subsidies for business development that companies have acquired. I think that there is still a lot of such areas to diagnose.

Are there anything else besides technological barriers we are missing?

PPH.: We lack the information culture in the sense of a positive opinion about the company. In Scandinavian business information offices, companies that regularly pay invoices are rewarded with positive opinion. We are talking then about positive economic information. In our country this market is dominated by dubious quality certificates.

MK.: In Poland the records and registers are dominated by negative information, focusing on the fact that someone has not paid and there is demand for mainly this kind of company data. On the other hand, the Western Europe has long ago discovered the value and importance of having positive economic information, that is timely payment. According to the Association of Information Providers on Consumer Credit (ACCIS), in Western European countries the structure of positive and negative information is 80 to 20. In Poland, the first is definitely underestimated.

We have thought for a long time that this should be changed, because positive information builds the image of a reliable contractor, informs the market about the payment credibility of the company, which in turn has the chance to obtain more favorable terms of cooperation. In 2015, the National Debt Register (KRD BIG SA) together with Rzetelna Firma conducted a unique survey in Poland of the level of trust in business and its impact on the economy. It turned out that we are a very distrustful nation. We think mainly about how to protect ourselves so that the contractor does not cheat us, which makes us unable to cooperate. The losses for this reason were estimated at PLN 281 billion. This clearly demonstrates how broadly understood economic information is important for the development of our economy.

What did the economic information market look like 5 years ago? How does it look today? Any milestones?

JT: Certainly, you can not talk about a gradual revolution, but there have been changes that influenced the functioning of the economic information industry and gave it new potential for development.

The example is the Act of 15 March 2016 on the re-use of public sector information, which opened the door to processing of state register resources. Since 2015, we also have a law in Poland that obliges courts to provide Economic Information Bureaus with information on entities’ debt to the State Treasury due to fines and court costs.

MK.: Five years ago Economic Information Bureaus in Poland did not have such a wide range of possibilities to obtain economic information from many sources as at present. In turn, the creditors had to wait longer for the possibility of entering the debtor in the register, which at the same time reduced the chances of recovery. Economic Information Bureaus could not also store archived data and create scoring. Fortunately, this has changed the last year’s amendment to the Act. The key change was also the possibility of entering data on public law liabilities, i.e. unpaid taxes, which until now were unavailable to companies, and very important in assessing contract risk.

Our experts, who participated in the consultations on the act changes, repeatedly stressed that this would be the implementation of long-term postulates of entrepreneurs. And the scale of this type of debt is high. Companies are in the hands of the State Treasury and municipalities amounting to several dozen billion zlotys. It is a pity that ZUS (Polish National Tax Office) was excluded from this catalog of sources at the stage of work on the act. The arrears of entrepreneurs due to social security contributions are also enormous and just as important in assessing the credibility of the contractor.

The important change, but not yet fully noticed by the market, is the ability to create assessments of payment credibility, which will help entrepreneurs to make decisions about establishing cooperation with a contractor. A large amount of data is often difficult to analyze for someone who does not deal with it on a daily basis, so recommendations are necessary.

The November amendment also introduced other changes desired by the market. You can add a debtor more quickly, not after 60, but already after 30 days from the date of payment, and debtors who are entrepreneurs can be called for payment by e-mail, instead of a registered letter. Companies also have twice as much time to check consumers. Previously, it was 30 days from the consent of a private person, now it is 60 days.

And what is the value of the economic information market in Poland? How much was it worth 5 years ago and how is it valued today?

MK.: The precise data on this topic is missing from the current year. But the latest study conducted by the Association of Information Professionals from 2017 indicates that the revenues of companies operating in this market in 2012 amounted to PLN 321 millions, and in 2015 — PLN 440 millions, which is over 37% increase in the audited period. At the same time, these are data collected from both Economic Information Bureaus and business intelligence.

Our experts:

Martin Kaczmarski

CEO of the Kaczmarski Group and a member of the Supervisory Board of the Economic Information Bureau KRD BIG SA. The founder of ChronPESEL.pl — a platform that provides consumers with protection in the case of extortion of their personal data and NFG — a company specializing in providing services for enterprises from the SME sector, including in the field of factoring.

Patrycja Hrabiec-Hojda

Information broker, founder of Infobrokerska.pl and editor-in-chief of the Rynek Informacji. Specializes in medical information and marketing analyzes. Co-author of profession standards: information broker and information management specialist.

Justyna Trzeciakowska

Infobroker, OSINT trainer, co-owner of infobrokerska.pl, editor of the Rynek Informacji. Specializes in market and competition analysis. Passionate about obtaining statistical data and hidden internet.