Twenty years ago on 27 April 1994 South Africa's rainbow nation was reborn when the country's first democratic general election was held. This time of immense change and transformation brought about an era of hope and the promise of a brighter future for all South Africans. Inspired by the values of the country's new leader, Nelson Mandela, and motivated by his vision for change, Compuscan was born.

Compuscan, like our country's democracy, was born from a deep-rooted belief that change was both possible and vital. For Compuscan's founders revolutionising the credit industry, in particular microcredit, was essential for the success of our country's young economy. At the time of Compuscan's establishment there was still a distinct lack of a credit reporting system for the microcredit industry and the absence of information sharing resulted in the poor performance of lending institutions and a high default rate prevailed. Ultimately, the microcredit sector was perceived as risky due to the fact that asymmetric information resulted in lenders not accurately pricing the risk involved which lead to adverse selection and over-indebtedness. It was at this time that the founders of Compuscan recognised the opportunity in the market to create a credit reporting system for the microlending industry.

In 1995, one year after its humble beginnings, Compuscan went on to establish a system to share positive and negative data with other microlenders via FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Data was replicated daily across more than 1800 microlenders in the country. Credit Check was launched four years later which marked a significant feat in the expansion of the Compuscan business and the development of the products which are subsequently on offer to clients today.

In 2000 Compuscan's vision took it to Africa where it extended its credit bureau services to both Namibia and Botswana. Since then Uganda, Ethiopia and Lesotho have followed suit. This expansion would not have been possible had it not been for the vision of change that Compuscan's founders shared with the father of South Africa's democratic nation.

While our company and country moves forward to celebrate 20 years of change and prosperity, we bid farewell to Nelson Mandela whose inspiring vision played a significant role in our establishment and success. As a South African company, we are immensely proud to be so closely affiliated with this iconic man through our own heritage, our co-incidental year of formation and indeed our own internal deep-rooted belief in the value of change.