Millions of Americans face economic hardships today due to the financial crisis. The Great Recession made a big impact on the financial lives of consumers. Unemployment was high and many struggled to make ends meet, forcing them to tap into their savings and live off credit to survive. Now that our economy is recovering, we believe that education is the key for consumers to unlock the door that leads to financial success and opportunity. As part of our commitment to educate consumers, we work with organizations that educate and raise awareness about financial literacy. One of our valued partners is Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. Through a financial literacy grant Experian supported production of a series of webcasts on financial capability and issues impacting low-income Americans. Starting this month, the following webcasts will be available at www.SpotlightonPoverty.org. • Governor of Delaware, Jack Markell—Governor Markell explains why he established The Financial Literacy Education Fund and what steps Delaware is taking to promote financial capability among child care providers as well as other groups. • National Foundation for Credit Counseling, Susan Keating—Keating highlights how we can arm people with the information and tools to help them get back on their feet. • AARP Foundation, Emily Allen—Allen discusses how the elderly can recover from the recession, manage their limited finances and protect themselves financially. • Corporation for Enterprise Development, Andrea Levere—Levere focuses on how to help the underbanked navigate the financial world and strategies to change education in our schools. • Center for Financial Services Innovation, Sarah Gordon—Gordon examines how to transform the financial services marketplace to help change the behaviors of underserved consumers to help them achieve financial prosperity. • Shepherd Consortium, Dr. Harlan Beckley— Dr. Beckley and his students explain a new financial literacy project being developed by universities to help fight poverty. Experian’s vice president of public education, Maxine Sweet also participated in a webcast. Experian Maxine from Spotlight on Vimeo. Experian Maxine pt2 from Spotlight on Vimeo. To learn more about Experian’s financial education resources visit www.LiveCreditSmart.com.
Grab a pen and paper. Jot down some differences between the Northeast and Midwest. What came to mind? Maybe it was the bright city lights of the Northeast versus the Midwest’s starlit farms? Or maybe it’s the city’s busy streets compared to quiet open fields? What you may or may not have written down is that Northeasterners prefer to drive more import vehicles than the folks in the Midwest. According to Experian Automotive’s mid-year review of automotive market trends, in the first half of 2013, the top five new vehicle models in the Northeast region were all import brands. Conversely, as one might have guessed, American-made vehicles dominated the Midwestern roads. In the Northeast, the list was made up of the Honda Accord, Honda CR-V, Toyota Camry, Honda Civic and Nissan Altima. Out in the Midwest, Ford vehicles made up four of the top five and the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 filled out the list. The top five in order included the F-150, Fusion, Escape, Silverado 1500 and the Focus. In the West, the list was more closely aligned with Northeast, as import vehicles made up four of the five, with the Ford F-150 being the only domestic brand. The list included the Honda Civic, Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, F-150 and Toyota Corolla. The South was a mixture of both import and domestic with the Ford F150, Toyota Camry, Nissan Altima, Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and the Toyota Corolla making up the top five. Other highlights from the analysis included: • Full-sized pickup trucks were the most popular vehicle segment in the first half of 2013, making up almost 15 percent of the vehicles on the road • In Q2 2013, Buick and Volvo were the top brands with the longest average length of ownership at 98 and 92 months, respectively • General Motors (26.6 percent), Ford (18.9 percent) and Toyota (12.6 percent) were top three in vehicle market share for first half of 2013 For more information on this analysis, or to view a recorded webinar of the findings, please visit https://www.experian.com/automotive.
In the personal finance world, credit is one of the hottest topics to talk about and there are many resources available to consumers. To further empower consumers to take a more active role in managing their credit, Experian provides a number of solid consumer education programs. As a positive extension to those, in 2011 we developed Experian Credit Educator, a consumer-education service that offers personalized, live, one-on-one, telephone-based credit education sessions to consumers and customers of Experian’s clients. Experian recently announced that we’ve added new features to this service in order to give consumers insights into specific actions which may produce an improvement to their credit score. Participants will now receive a longer session with an Experian Credit Educator agent, score simulations providing specific examples of actions that may improve their credit score and more resources to assist in understanding their credit profile. With this enhancement, the Experian Credit Educator agents are able to answer consumers’ questions as they relate to their personal VantageScore® credit score and provide insight into how specific actions can affect the score, such as: “Is there anything I can do today that may improve my score?” “I have $500 to put towards my debt – what’s the best way to distribute that to improve my score?” “I want to prioritize paying down my debt, what actions could produce an increase in my score by five points?” An Experian Credit Educator session costs $39.95 and includes: An approximately 35-minute, one-on-one, dynamic phone session with a trained Experian Credit Educator Agent A detailed walk-through and a copy of a personalized Experian credit report A VantageScore with an explanation of score factors and benchmark scores for each participant’s city, state, and region within the United States Score simulations providing specific examples of actions that may improve the consumer’s score Links to online resources for credit management and life events information Consumers who want to take the next step in improving their finances can visit Experian.com/CreditEducator or call 1 877 903 1009 to initiate a personalized education session.
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.