Bisnode signs agreement for administration of SPAR

Bisnode’s subsidiary Infodata has signed a transitional agreement with the Swedish Tax Agency for handling of the SPAR database (Swedish Coordinated Population and Adress Register). Infodata’s earlier agreement with the SPAR Authority is due to expire on 31 December 2008 and has now been renegotiated in a transitional agreement with the Swedish Tax Agency as principal. The new agreement will run for 18 months and is expected to have a continued positive effect on the Group’s financial results.

Bisnode’s subsidiary Infodata has operated and distributed information from the SPAR database on contract from the SPAR Authority since 1978. In the spring of 2007 the SPAR Authority announced that the agreement with Infodata AB would be terminated as of 31 December 2008. A public procurement was then started, but was later cancelled in the spring of 2008 pending a more in-depth review of the matter.

The Swedish Government has now decided transfer responsibility for SPAR to the Swedish Tax Agency with effect from 1 January 2009. However, there is no ready SPAR solution to be taken over and the future business model must be built up from scratch. In order to secure handling and delivery of SPAR-related services, a transitional agreement with Infodata has been signed to cover the period necessary for the Swedish Tax Agency to introduce a new business model that complies with the PSI Directive and is both legally secure and efficient. The assessment is that this model can be implemented by mid-year 2010 at the earliest.

“Infodata has been distributing information from the SPAR database on behalf of the SPAR Authority for 30 years and will now continue providing this service to the Swedish Tax Agency. Many direct marketing and consumer information services are based to a large extent on quality-assured SPAR data, and the agreement now signed will enable us to continue serving the entire market,” says Johan Wall, CEO of Bisnode.

Infodata and other companies in the Bisnode Group are resellers and major users of SPAR.