Black History Month launches in the UK today. Throughout the month, we’ll be holding a series of events to support Black British people to realise their personal financial and business aspirations. Look out for webinars on Credit Scores and Property Investing on 6th October and Credit Scores and Entrepreneurship on 13th October, with guest speakers including Kazeem Alli-Balogun, Sebastian Newby, Stephanie Taylor, Rachael Twumasi-Corson from Afrocenchix, Ismail Oshodi and Raphael Sofoluke. Register here. The last week of October also sees the launch of the first Experian Entrepreneur Challenge, a 5-day bootcamp helping Black micro-entrepreneurs define the roadmap towards business success. The week includes topics like how to spot opportunities for business expansion, and formalising business and funding growth, with special guests from Experian teams holding masterclass sessions on topics like market research, marketing and recruitment. At the end of the week, entrepreneurs will pitch for £3000 worth of funding to help grow their business. Participants will be uploading video diaries over the course of the week, which takes place from 27th October onwards – you’ll be able to check out their experiences on our YouTube channel here. Finally, the Experian team will be sharing personal experiences and career advice at two exciting events, Black Tech Fest and UK Black Business Week. We’re proud to be sponsors of both events. Watch out for more updates and ways to join in virtually nearer the time!
The historic civil rights organization, the National Urban League, kicked off its first-ever virtual national convention recently, and Craig Boundy, former Chief Executive Officer of Experian North America had the honor of joining them. National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial and Craig announced our new partnership that will support financial inclusion and credit education. During the announcement, Marc mentioned one of the key findings of the Urban League’s 2021 State of Black America – The New Normal: close to 17 percent of Black households lacked basic financial services, compared with three percent of white households in 2017, the last year for which FDIC statistics are available. He characterized this as a “disastrous and disproportionate impact of the COVID pandemic on the economic stability of African American communities.” We believe working together will make a big difference in the lives of underserved consumers. As part of our United for Financial Health program, Experian is providing National Urban League members access to credit education tools and services like consumer credit reports and Experian Boost™, as well as resources for small businesses. As Craig mentioned in his remarks, “at the heart of this partnership is knowledge: when you understand financial services, you come to understand the financial system. You can take steps to create and improve a relationship with financial service providers. That can make a huge difference today, and for future generations.” This partnership is just the start of our relationship with the National Urban League, and we look forward to working together towards closing the wealth gap and empowering consumers to achieve their life’s goals.
With data technology and innovation as the backbone of our company and with our commitment to celebrating diversity, we are proud to share an incredible recognition: AnitaB.org has named Experian North America a Top Company for Women Technologists. Organizations on this list are committed to building workplaces where women technologists can thrive, and this honor is considered an industry benchmark for progress toward equity. Our culture of inclusion internally at Experian fuels our innovations to achieve financial inclusion externally. Being named a Leader by AnitaB.org for the second time affirms we’re moving in the right direction. September has been a big month for us: we also earned a place in Fortune’s Best Workplaces for Women and PEOPLE’s 100 Companies That Care 2021 lists for the first time. My colleague and fellow leader for our Women in Experian employee resource group Karen Tatten shares my sentiments: “It’s fantastic to see our efforts to hire, promote and retain top female talent recognized in the marketplace. It’s a tremendous honor and reminder to all women in Experian of why we chose Experian for our career journey.” At Experian North America, men and women are promoted equally. More than half of our new hires and close to half of all employees identify as women. Former Chief Executive Officer Craig Boundy was recently recognized as a Best CEO for Women by Comparably, an acknowledgement especially meaningful because the award relied solely on the input of employees. Even with these accolades, we strive for better. This year, we are committed to a specific goal for the company globally to help close the gender gap. By 2024, Experian pledges to increase the proportion of women in our executive committee and direct reports to 30%, our senior leaders to 40%, our mid-level leaders to 42%, and our total global workforce to 47%. We look forward to sharing our progress.
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.