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Experian's game plan is focused on improving the financial health of consumers everywhere.  As part of that journey, we recently went to Miami, Florida, ahead of the Big Game, with pro football legend and American Ninja Warrior host Akbar Gbajabiamila to discuss how Experian Boost is helping millions increase their credit scores. Gbajabiamila, author of “Everyone Can be a Ninja,” is passionate about helping people develop a financial game plan and he understands having a good credit score is a key component of good financial health. “There’s something I’m truly passionate about and it’s financial literacy. Credit scores are something so many people hear about, but they don’t know how to interact with them. Experian has a platform that allows people to personally impact their credit scores. You can literally take your everyday utility bills, add them into your Experian credit report and get credit for that,” said Gbajabiamila. The days leading up to the Big Game provided an exciting time for Gbajabiamila to share with consumers across the country about how Experian Boost is instantly improving credit scores and helping people take control of their credit. In fact, Akbar’s take on the important role credit scores play in financial health was enthusiastically received by many on-air hosts who echoed the need to speak about it more frequently. As Akbar shared, “Whether you’re a professional athlete or a fan of professional sports, it’s important that you pay attention to your credit report.  And Experian Boost is the right step.” View highlights from our trip to Radio Row in the video below and learn more about Experian Boost by visiting www.Experian.com/BoostAmerica.

Explore Experian’s insights for customer identity and its interrelationship with security, convenience, and personalization, from consumers and businesses Businesses often talk about creating the ultimate digital experience for customers but far less about the interrelationship between security, convenience, and personalization. This results in siloed security measures at major decision points across the customer journey. And, it’s a disconnect that’s perpetuated through equally siloed CRM systems that strive to identify customer preferences but fail to do so in a consistent and appealing way. The impact on consumers is that they are dragged through a maze of security and risk protocols while at the same time being targeted or re-targeted products and services that are not always relevant. We challenged senior executives at 650 companies to think about whether they can accurately identify their customers and meet their customers’ needs for a relevant experience to not only help them create a more trusted relationship with a consumer but also to reduce fraud losses. We also surveyed over 6,500 consumers who had a lot to say about what constitutes best-in-class digital customer experience. Perception versus reality Our study found that 95% of businesses worldwide believe they are accurately identifying their customers yet 55% of consumers don’t feel recognized.   In our survey last year, 84% of businesses said that if they could better identify their customers, then they could easily spot fraud.  However, 57% of business reported having significantly higher fraud losses this year versus last year.  How can this be true if businesses are in fact as strong as they believe they are at recognizing their customers and thus, presumably by extension, fraudsters? This then begs the question: how are businesses defining “recognition” and is it really working?   Are they recognizing a customer to a person or are they able to categorize a customer into prescriptive buckets such as broad demographic delineations? Expectations for customer engagement Our study also found that 74% of consumers say security is still the most important factor when deciding to engage with a business online. This has been a consistent finding over the past two years. In fact, consumers are even willing to give more personal information for greater security and easier access to their accounts later, once they are comfortable. Despite this, over half of businesses are prioritizing personalization over security when making improvements to their customer experience.  Consumers acknowledged experiencing and appreciating the changes businesses are making to their digital experience however security remained to be their most important criteria for engaging or continuing to engage with a business. What now? Desires for ultimate experience and concerns for security are still shaping the digital relationship between consumers and businesses where identity is at the heart of every customer decision and interaction.  We believe businesses will need to invest further in data, infrastructure, and advanced analytics in order to get to a point of truly recognizing a consumer digitally as opposed to categorizing for broad brush pseudo personalization purposes.  Only then will businesses start to make a dent in fulfilling the high consumer expectations for recognition as well as in mitigating rising fraud. Download our report (15 min read) and find out more about: Challenges standing in the way of businesses trying to identify their customers What different businesses and countries are doing to improve identity authentication The new type of customer journey that executives believe will improve the digital experience

  I am delighted to announce that Experian has been recognised by the Top Employers Institute as a Top Employer in the UK, Spain, Bulgaria and South Africa. The annual research programme recognises leading employers around the world. Organisations certified as Top Employers dedicate themselves to providing the very best working environment for employees through their progressive ‘people-first’ HR practices. Being recognised as a Top Employer four years in a row is a significant achievement for us, but it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our incredible workforce. By listening to our people and encouraging new ideas, they have continued to help us develop our working culture and pushed the boundaries to create the best possible working environment. An integral part of this is to encourage diversity throughout Experian and that means building our ways of working and our approach in a way that offers equality of opportunity, supporting our employees from the moment they join our organisation, at every level, and letting people work flexibly, in the way that suits them. We have been working hard to create a place where everyone has the freedom to explore and share interests, no matter what their individual story is, without fear of judgement. The more inclined we are to bring our rich outside world to work, the more we will expose others to new perspectives and different thinking, making Experian a great place to work. I’m extremely proud of the progress we’ve made over the last 12 months, with my personal highlights including our on-going partnerships with the likes of Women in Data, Stonewall and the Business Disability Forum, as well as the development of our employee health and well-being offerings. It’s important that we continue to build on this success, looking for new ways to do things, and continuing to provide a working environment that our people love.