We recently wrapped up a special community outreach effort during Financial Literacy Month that reflects something important to Experian – helping consumers, especially underserved populations, understand credit and how to harness it to their benefit. It’s important to rally around a cause like this at peak times throughout the year, but financial literacy and, more importantly, financial power for all is what drives us every day, every month and every year. Empowering consumers is the fuel behind our innovation and the portfolio of credit tools we have developed in the past few years and those to come. While there are different viewpoints around the use of credit scores to assess consumers’ credit-worthiness, credit bureau data remains the most effective means for understanding a consumer’s financial situation. This is why we continually innovate to find new ways of utilizing that data to give consumers more control and allow lenders to see well-rounded consumer profiles. Our charter led to the launch of the first-of-its-kind tool, Experian Boost. By allowing consumers the ability to directly add positive payment history for recurring utility and telecom bills – even video streaming services – to their Experian credit report, they can take a proactive step to improve their credit score and gain more control. While lenders benefit by seeing additional data about consumers that considers positive behavior for paying these types of recurring bills that hasn’t been factored in the past. It’s a win-win situation, and we’ve seen the positive results. To date, Experian Boost users have gained access to more than 1.7 billion total dollars in credit as a result of improving their credit scores, while 1 million consumers added a credit card in the first year after the launch. Also, nearly 250,000 consumers acquired an auto loan and some consumers earned a credit score for the first time. For those who had thin files and weren’t able to enter the credit ecosystem before, obtaining a credit score for the first time and learning how to improve it can be life changing. Our mission is to drive financial inclusion and facilitate access to fair and affordable credit for consumers; that objective is not just on our minds during one particular month out of the year. Experian Boost was a lengthy initiative in the making, and we believe one big step in the right direction to achieve our objective. It won’t stop there. I’m looking forward to more innovation to come that continues to assist consumers in gaining more credit knowledge and control over their credit in order to reach their financial goals.
In many countries around the world June 1st marks the beginning of Pride Month. This annual celebration of the LGBTQ+ community is a time to reflect on the progress that has been made and the work there is still to do for LGBTQ+ equality around the world. As well as being a time of celebration, Pride Month offers a chance for us to get to know each other better. It is a time to think about how we create a truly inclusive workplace for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Everyone should feel safe, included and respected at work. It is up to all of us to create the right environment for LGBTQ+ colleagues to prosper and thrive, and we’re proud to work closely with partners like Stonewall and Out & Equal to help us achieve that goal. Around the world, Experian stands for diversity, for equity and inclusion. We support and welcome our LGBTQ+ colleagues, and we are proud to celebrate with you today and every day.
This morning, we announced our year-end earnings. Once again, we have demonstrated our resilience in the most difficult of circumstances. With this set of results, I am pleased to report that Experian has now grown through two major global economic downturns. None of this would have been possible without the incredible hard work and commitment of everyone in the company. The coronavirus pandemic is the gravest crisis faced by the world for a generation. From the beginning, Experian moved quickly to make our data insights available to governments, health services, communities, businesses and charities around the world. We also worked rapidly with lenders and governments to support financial accommodation programmes. This has proven to be crucial in making sure financial assistance reached those who needed it, helping people to manage their financial health and ensuring that our economies kept moving through these turbulent times. Looking ahead to the next financial year, our vision for Experian is to continue to bring the benefits of our world class data and analytics capabilities directly to consumers and wider society. Data-led decision making, and technology have been critical in helping humanity to take on the biggest challenge in a generation. It will be a crucial driver of the global economic recovery, helping us all to bounce back stronger and providing the foundations to flourish in the years ahead. I am tremendously proud of our employees around the world. Our people’s professional and personal responses to the pandemic, and the results we have delivered, have been remarkable. We have worked from our kitchen tables, while home-schooling our children, and caring for our family members. We have pulled together and gone above and beyond during one of the most turbulent times in a generation. There can be no greater testament to the character and the strength of our team. I think it’s no overstatement to say that we have delivered one of our most remarkable performances ever. We have made important strategic progress. We have pressed ahead with new product innovation, with our technology transformation, and we have extended our presence across many new markets and segments. As we enter our next year, we do so with strong foundations for further growth and the uplifting confidence that even through the most challenging of times, we can and will continue to create a better tomorrow for everyone.
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.