Interfax (russian: Интерфакс) is a Russian news agency. The agency is owned by Interfax News Agency

joint-stock company A joint-stock company is a business entity in which shares of the company's capital stock, stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their share (finance), shares (certificates ...

and is headquartered in Moscow.

History

As the first non-governmental channel of political and economic information about the USSR, Interfax was formed in September 1989, during

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

’s ''

perestroika ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...

and

glasnost ''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...

'' period, by Mikhail Komissar and his colleagues from international broadcasting station ' Radio Moscow', a part of Soviet

Gosteleradio The State Committee of Television and Radio Broadcasting of the Soviet Union (Russian: Государственный комитет СССР по телевидению и радиовещанию) commonly known as Gosteleradio of the USSR (Го ...

system. Interfax originally used fax machines for text transmission, hence the company name.
Михаил Комиссар: задача «Интерфакса» — быть номером один
'. — TV-channel '

Russia-24 Russia-24 (russian: Россия-24) is a state-owned Russian-language news channel from Russia. It covers major national and international events as well as focuses on domestic issues. It is owned by VGTRK. History The broadcast began January 1 ...

', 9 September 2009. By 1990, Interfax had 100 subscribers and the agency quickly began to attract the attention of conservatives within the government, who attempted to shut down the agency. This saw the agency gain prominence in major western media, a position strengthened by its coverage of the

1991 August Putsch File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

and the collapse of the Soviet Union.Корпоративный бюллетень
Ваш Интерфакс
�. — #10/2009. Interfax-presscentreMoscow2016

Interfax continued to expand in the 1990s, adding

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

agencies for

financial Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

, metallurgical, oil and gas markets, information products on agriculture, business law, transport, telecommunications, and the market data terminal 'EFiR information system' for

stock market A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include ''securities'' listed on a public stock exchange, as ...

players to its general news coverage.
About
'. — Official site of EFiR system. Interfax also opened subsidiaries across the post-Soviet states, first in Ukraine (1992), Belarus (1993) and Kazakhstan (1996), and later in Azerbaijan (2002),
Our history
'. — Official site of Interfax Group. during this time bringing the number of local offices across the regions of Russian Federation to 50.
Михаил Комиссар: «Надеюсь, в России установится баланс между либеральным и государственным»
'. — Politcom.ru, 1 September 2006. To promote its information products abroad, Interfax opened its first company outside the former USSR in 1991, when 'Interfax America' was opened in Denver, CO. This was followed by the opening of London-based 'Interfax Europe Ltd.' (1992), 'Interfax Germany GmbH', based in Frankfurt (1993), and the 'Interfax News Service Ltd.' in Hong Kong (1998). In 2004, Interfax created the 'SPARK system' designed to check business agents in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan,
Информация по юридическим лицам РФ, Украины и Казахстана
'. — Official site of Interfax Group. Interfax also launched media monitoring services through its 'SCAN system'.
About
'. — Official site of United Credit Bureau. In 2011, the company added London-based project, 'Interfax Global Energy', which reports on the energy markets worldwide.
Interfax Global Energy
'. — Official site of Interfax Global Energy.

Partnerships

In 1999, Interfax launched a

rating agency A credit rating agency (CRA, also called a ratings service) is a company that assigns credit ratings, which rate a debtor's ability to pay back debt by making timely principal and interest payments and the likelihood of default. An agency may ra ...

in partnership with Moody's Investors Service to provide rating services on the

Russian market The economy of Russia has gradually transformed from a planned economy into a mixed market-oriented economy. —Rosefielde, Steven, and Natalia Vennikova. “Fiscal Federalism in Russia: A Critique of the OECD Proposals.” Cambridge Journa ...

. SPARK system became the basis for a joint venture with

Dun & Bradstreet The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation is an American company that provides commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, the company offers a wide range of products and services for risk and financia ...

, a provider of business credit information and credit reports.
Информация по компаниям всего мира
'. — Official site of Interfax Group. Also in 1999, Interfax and Reuters signed a cooperation agreement. Since 2001, Interfax has collaborated with Business Wire, which distributes corporate regulatory disclosures and press releases. Interfax also offers consumer credit reports via a joint venture with

Experian Experian is an American–Irish multinational data analytics and consumer credit reporting company. Experian collects and aggregates information on over 1 billion people and businesses including 235 million individual U.S. consumers and more t ...

and Sberbank of Russia.
About
'. — Official site of United Credit Bureau.

Management

'Interfax Group'

senior management Senior management, executive management, upper management, or a management is generally individuals at the highest level of management of an organization who have the day-to-day tasks of managing that organization—sometimes a company or a corpor ...

includes Mikhail Komissar as

Chairman of the Board The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

, Vladimir Gerasimov, Executive Director and General Director of Financial and Business Information Service, Georgy Gulia, Executive Director of General Information Service.
Management
'. — Official site of Interfax Group.

Content

Interfax provides general and political news, business

credit information Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person. The abbreviation PII is widely accepted in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates ha ...

, industry analysis, market data and business solutions for risk, compliance and credit management. The company employs over 1,000 staff in over 70 bureaus worldwide and publishes over 3,000 stories each day.

Dissemination

Interfax controls around 50% of the Russian corporate data market.Информационно-справочные системы
. -

RBC RBC may refer to: Media and arts * ''RBK Daily'', a general business newspaper published in Moscow, Russia. * RBK Group, a large Russian media group * RBC Ministries, now Our Daily Bread Ministries, a Christian media outlet in Grand Rapdis, Mich ...

.Marketing. Subscription-based business and financial intelligence contribute to the bulk of the revenues generated by Interfax with IT-analytical business solutions accounting for approximately 75% of revenue.Комиссар М.
Успеть первыми
'. - Корпоративный бюллетень «Ваш Интерфакс», #16/2014. Interfax's holding company comprises more than 30 news producing and marketing companies in Russia, Ukraine (

Interfax-Ukraine The Interfax-Ukraine ( uk, Інтерфакс-Україна) is a Kyiv-based Ukraine, Ukrainian independent news agency founded in 1992. The company does not belong to the Russian news corporation Interfax Information Services. The company pub ...

), Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

.Гавшина О., Товкайло М.
Из списка подлежащих раскрытию бенефициаров сделали исключения
'. — Vedomosti, January 19, 2012.

Awards

In 2015, Interfax was awarded the Runet Prize in the category "Culture, Media and Mass Communications". In 2016, Interfax was awarded the Runet Prize in the category “Economy, Business and Investment".

References

Literature

* Boyd-Barrett O.
Interfax: Breaking Into Global News
'. — Scotforth Books, 2014. — p. 184. — * Shrivastava K. ''News Agencies: From Pigeon to Internet''. — Sterling Publishers Private Limited, 2007. — p. 208. — * Герасимов В., Ромов Р., Новиков А., Бондаренко С., Бабиченко С.
Технология новостей от Интерфакса
' / Под ред. Ю. Погорелого. — Moscow: Аспект Пресс, 2011. — 160 с. —

External links

* * , official site * Кондратьев В.
Героические страницы истории «Интерфакса»
'. — NTV TV-channel, 9 September 2009. *
20 лет «Интерфаксу»
'. — Echo of Moscow radio, 9 September 2009. {{Authority control News agencies based in Russia Russian news websites Mass media in Moscow Eastern Bloc mass media Mass media companies of the Soviet Union 1989 establishments in the Soviet Union Companies established in 1989