Financial education for me as I was growing up consisted of two things. The first was learning how to balance a checkbook register in sixth grade. But that had everything to do with addition and subtraction. There was no discussion of what a checking account was or how it should be used. The second was about credit, and it came from my parents. In my mother’s view, credit was a gift from God. My father’s perspective was that credit is evil. In time, I learned that neither view is financially healthy — or true. I wish I had been taught that credit — when used properly — is a financial tool, that debt is a financial problem, and that you can have one without the other. Instead, I graduated from college with $25,000 in student loan debt, which is about average now. But that was 26 years ago, so I guess it made me above average then. “Credit is a financial tool, and debt is a financial problem.” I also got a credit card for each T-shirt I signed up for and every drawing I entered to win a prize. That led to the pay-one-balance-with-another-card strategy, until I couldn’t make it work. I finally had the epiphany: The way to fix the credit problem was to quit spending. I proudly managed to pay all my debts on the salary of a small-town newspaper reporter — a whopping $13,000 a year at the time. But it was a long, slow process with a steep learning curve. Apparently, I was a pioneer in the gig economy, finding odd jobs outside of work to make a bit more money, which helped pay my debts a bit faster. If anyone wants to learn the Texas two-step, let me know! “True financial health is making your money work for you, not you working for your money.” Eventually, I discovered that true financial health is making your money work for you, not you working for your money, no matter how little or much of it you have. Even on a reporter’s salary, I could have a steak dinner once a month — granted, it was at a restaurant where you got the steak, potato, salad bar and drink for $7.50. For many things in life, learning from your mistakes makes sense. Financial health is not one of them. That’s why financial education and financial inclusion are so important to me and my work at Experian. Giving people the knowledge they need to make financially healthy choices before they make mistakes ensures they have a much brighter financial future and a much healthier relationship with money and credit. Financial health matters. That’s why we’re joining the Center for Financial Services Innovation and the nation’s leading banks, financial services providers and nonprofits in supporting #FinHealthMatters Day on June 27, 2017. Tell us, how is your financial health?
In America, 138 million adults are struggling financially.* That’s nearly half the country’s population. Financial health matters. That’s why we’re joining the Center for Financial Services Innovation and the nation’s leading banks, financial services providers and nonprofits in supporting #FinHealthMatters Day on June 27, 2017. We’re at a critical point in our nation’s history. We need to make a stand and address the root causes of financial instability in this country. I believe the lack of financial education and access to cheaper financial products are two of the key contributors impacting people’s financial health today. Financial education drives better financial health Very early in my childhood, I learned the value of a Deutsche mark — or rather a dollar, as we say in the States. I grew up in Germany, where my father was an insurance salesman, a profession where money was sometimes tight. It was my parents’ financial principles that helped them weather the harder days and leverage the better ones. Their golden rule was always to live within their means. To help me grasp this concept, my parents gave me a modest weekly allowance I had to earn by contributing to household chores. Unfortunately, there were no dishwashers when I was growing up so I had the pleasure of hand-washing every dish at the end of each day. What seemed painful in the moment was rewarded with the funds to be able to do what I enjoyed most, like go to the movies or buy tapes to record my favorite tunes on my tape recorder. I had the freedom to spend my money the way I saw fit, but I could only spend what I had earned. It forced me to learn how to manage my money to have enough for the things I wanted or needed. In the United States, 23% of households can’t save because they spend more than their income. -Center for Financial Services Innovation To encourage their savings principle, my parents added an extra incentive to the allowance. If I didn’t spend all my money but rather saved it, I got a pay raise. Depending on the percentage of how much I saved, I saw incremental increases. The more I saved, the more generous the increase. I quickly learned that saving money had a better return than the hour or so spent in a movie theater. 43% of Americans struggle to pay bills and credit obligations. -Center for Financial Services Innovation Thankfully, I was lucky enough to have parents who taught me basic personal finance skills that set me up for success in my adult life. Unfortunately, unless they have parents who are savvy with money, most people will not learn these simple principles because they aren’t taught in most schools. We know education gives people a step up in life. Imagine how financial education would help people increase their financial health by leaps and bounds. This is why we have a dedicated public education team at Experian to provide consumers with proper credit information. This is also why we financially support nonprofits that share our mission of strengthening financial education. Access to credit increases financial health When I moved from Germany to America in 2001, I was part of the underbanked population. I had no credit history. I was invisible to financial institutions. Due to this, I faced many difficulties in accessing mainstream banking services and low-cost loans. 27% of U.S. households are either unbanked or underbanked. -Center for Financial Services Innovation This is a common issue for many people in this country, particularly low-income individuals and immigrants. These consumers are forced to turn to predatory lenders, which means it’s costing them significantly more for basic financial services. In 2015, these consumers spent a combined $141 billion in fees and interest just to manage their day-to-day financial lives.* Fortunately, my bank took into consideration the fact I paid my rent and utilities on time, and that’s how I built my credit. Others aren’t so lucky and will be in the same vicious cycle the rest of their lives, never improving their financial health — unless we do more. At Experian, we want to give the broader population an opportunity to do the same as I did. That’s why we’re working on bridging the gap between underbanked consumers and financial institutions. One way we accomplish this is through alternative data — data that has never been considered in credit decisions by financial institutions. Rental payments weren’t considered until Experian led this industry in incorporating this data into credit files. This data helps the underserved community establish credit histories. The result is greater access to more affordable credit and the overall improvement of their financial health. Our commitment to help improve financial health The struggling majority is the reason I come to work every day. In my role, I have a huge responsibility to consumers. Knowing firsthand that financial education and establishing credit are the pillars of financial stability, it’s my job to make sure we’re finding innovative ways to help people achieve outstanding financial health. *2016 Financially Underserved Market Size Study published by the Center for Financial Services Innovation http://cfsinnovation.org/research/2016-financially-underserved-market-size-study/
As Serasa Experian’s Corporate Sustainability Manager in Brazil, I’m dedicated to my job promoting diversity and inclusion efforts at work. But it also happens to be my passion. I believe that companies have a responsibility to reflect the diversity found in society, giving everyone equal opportunity to excel regardless of color, gender or disability. And yet, while a lot of companies over the years have made great strides toward hiring a diverse array of people, sometimes the harder — yet more impactful — work is making sure that diverse group of employees can continue to develop professionally after they’re hired. To this end, Serasa Experian’s Business Network for Social Inclusion (Rede Empresarial de Inclusão Social) launched a program called the Top Talent Project, which encourages and accelerates professional development once someone with physical disabilities is hired. I don’t want to simply hire people with disabilities; I want to ensure they can be productive and grow in their roles. While people with disabilities can bring great experience and skill to their positions, they may need some help integrating into teams. That’s why we work closely with each new hire, their managers and their mentors to guide them on a daily basis. If someone is hearing-impaired, for example, they may know only sign language and not Portuguese, making it difficult for them to communicate with their team. Through the Top Talent Project, we train new hires to communicate at work with their Portuguese-speaking coworkers. And then we give sign language training to their team members! We work hard to create a working environment that ensures success for everyone. In 2016, Serasa Experian received the United Nations Good Practices for Workers with Disabilities Award for our inclusion work in Brazil. That same month, I also was honored to receive the Empregueafro Award from the City Council of São Paulo for promoting ethnic diversity. All these accolades make me so proud because they’re a reflection of the way we at Experian take care of our people. Ten years ago, I changed careers so I could focus more on making the world a better place. Serasa Experian has given me the opportunity to do just that.
Today, we stand at the forefront of a digital revolution that is reshaping the financial services industry. And, against this backdrop, financial institutions are at vastly different levels of maturity; the world’s biggest banks are managing large-scale infrastructure migrations and making significant investments in AI while regional banks and credit unions are putting plans in place for modernization strategies, and fintechs are purpose-built and cloud native. To explore this more, I recently had the privilege of attending the annual Reuters NEXT live event in New York City. The event gathers globally recognized leaders across business, finance, technology, and government to tackle some of today’s most pressing issues. On the World Stage, I joined Del Irani, a talented anchor and broadcast journalist, to discuss the future of lending and the pivotal role of data and AI in building a more inclusive financial system. Improving financial access Our discussion highlighted the lack of access to traditional financial systems, and the impact it has on nearly 100 million people in North America alone. Globally, the problem affects over one billion people. These people, who are credit invisible, unscoreable, or have subprime credit scores, are unable to secure everyday financial products that many of us take for granted. What many don’t realize is, this is not a fringe subset of the population. Most of us, myself included, know someone who has faced the challenges of financial exclusion. Everyday Americans, including young people who are just starting out, new immigrants and people from diverse communities, often lack access to mainstream financial products. We discussed how traditional lending has a limited view of a consumer. Like looking through a keyhole, the lender’s understanding of the person in view is often incomplete and obstructed. However, with expanded data, technology, and advanced analytics, there is an opportunity to better understand the whole person, and as a result have a more inclusive financial system. At Experian, we have a unique ability to connect the power of traditional credit with alternative data, bringing a more holistic understanding of consumers and their behaviors. We are dedicated to leveraging our rich history in data and our expertise in technology to create the future of credit and ultimately bring financial power to everyone. The future of lending After spending two days with over 700 industry leaders from around the world, one thing is abundantly clear: much like the early days of the internet, today, we are at the cutting-edge of a technical revolution. Reflecting on my time at Reuters NEXT, I am particularly excited by the collective commitment to drive innovative, and smarter ways of working. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of how data and technology can transform financial services, and Experian is positioned to play a significant role. As we look to the future, I am excited about the ways we will create new opportunities for businesses and consumers alike.
The advertising ecosystem has seen significant transformation over the past few years, with increased privacy regulation, changes in available signals, and the rise of channels like connected TV and retail media. These changes are impacting the way that consumers interact with brands and how brands understand and continue to deliver relevant messages to consumers with precision. Experian has been helping marketers navigate these changes, and as a result, our marketing data and identity solutions underpin much of today’s advertising industry. We’re committed to empowering marketers and agencies to understand and reach their target audiences, across all channels. Today, we are excited to announce our acquisition of Audigent—a leading data and activation platform in the advertising industry. With Audigent’s combination of first-party publisher data, inventory and deep supply-side distribution relationships, publishers, big and small, can empower marketers to better understand their customers, expand the reach of their target audiences and activate those audiences across the most impactful inventory. I am excited to bring together Audigent’s supply-side network as a natural extension to our existing demand-side capabilities. Audigent’s ability to combine inventory with targeted audiences using first-party, third-party and contextual signals provides the best of all worlds, allowing marketers to deliver campaigns centered on consumer choices, preferences, and behaviors. The addition of Audigent further strengthens our strategy to be the premier independent provider of marketing data and identity, ultimately creating more relevant experiences for consumers. To learn more about Experian and Audigent, visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/ and https://audigent.com/.
When it comes to cybercriminals and threat vectors, we need to expect the unexpected. Experian’s 12th annual Data Breach Industry Forecast highlights several potential trends for 2025, with AI playing a central role. This year has already seen more data breaches and impacted consumers than 2023, indicating that global data breaches are not slowing down. Some things to watch out for next year includes the potential for more internal fraud. As companies train employees on AI, there is a growing risk that some will misuse their knowledge for internal theft and sourcing sensitive information. Another trend may be cyberattackers targeting large data centers, with the growth of generative AI introducing power as a new attack vector. It’s reported that a single ChatGPT query uses significantly more electricity than a standard Google search, making data centers and cloud infrastructure vulnerable, especially in countries with varying security standards. We expect AI-related attacks to dominate the headlines next year and investments in cybersecurity will increase to tackle this emerging threat, as hackers leverage AI for phishing, password cracking, malware, and deepfakes. Jim Steven, Head of Crisis and Data Response Services at Experian Global Data Breach Resolution in the UK, anticipates that global data breaches will persist at their current rate next year. He notes that ransomware attacks are likely to become even more sophisticated with the integration of AI. Additionally, Steven predicts that threat actors will escalate their tactics to achieve greater rewards, and the misuse of consumer data to damage reputations will increase in 2025. To access the complimentary report, click here.