I was born and raised in Germany and had the privilege of moving to the U.S. for my undergraduate degree. When I started school, my parents made a deal with me that they would pay one-third of my tuition. I got a job at the campus library to pay another third but still was short by a third. To cover the gap, I decided to try my luck as an entrepreneur. Specifically, the dollar was very strong due to which it seemed feasible to buy a German luxury car in my native Germany, refurbish it to U.S. specs, drive it for a little while and still turn a healthy profit. In order to purchase my first car, I needed a loan. However, like most new immigrants, I was credit invisible. Meaning, the credit history I had in Germany did not come with me to the U.S. Because of this, I was forced to rely on alternative lending as traditional lenders did not have enough information to assess if I was a good credit risk. With no other options, I turned to an alternative lender and secured a high interest loan. Thankfully, I was able to maintain my payments and paid off the loan in fifteen months, that is, when I sold the car. At this time, obtaining credit from an alternative lender was not factored into a traditional credit history. This meant that even though I repaid the loan responsibly, it did not help build my U.S. credit file or my credit score when I was ready to do it all again. This experience is what fuels my passion to maintain Experian’s position as the leader in alternative credit data and improve consumer financial health. We know that a consumer’s traditional lending history for things like credit cards, personal loans, auto loans, and mortgages are a proven method to assess creditworthiness, but sometimes there isn't enough data to score all consumers. Many consumers who are excluded from the traditional credit ecosystem are in fact creditworthy, but due to an international move, divorce or simply a lack of experience with credit, they’re unscorable and or invisible to lenders. Whether you’re new to the country or just getting your financial feet wet, starting to build your credit history can be difficult. If we indeed can play a role in helping consumers live the American dream, I believe it’s our responsibility to do that. The good news is the lending market is in a pivotal state of change and I believe it’s for the better. At Experian, we can now use the responsible payments consumers make to alternative lenders as well as their rental payments, professional licensures, utility and cell phone payments, and, of course, their traditional credit history to help consumers gain access to the financial services they need. We recently announced Experian Lift™ – a new suite of credit score products that combines exclusive traditional credit, alternative credit and trended data assets to create a more holistic picture of consumer creditworthiness. We believe Experian Lift may improve access to credit for more than 40 million credit invisibles. It’s another step in our commitment to helping improve the financial health of consumers everywhere. As you may know, earlier this year, Experian launched Experian Boost – a free and first-of-its-kind financial tool that empowers consumers to add positive telecom and utility payment history directly into their Experian credit file for an opportunity to instantly increase their FICO Score. Through Experian Boost, we’re empowering consumers to play an active role in building their credit histories. And, with Experian Lift, we’re empowering lenders to identify consumers who may otherwise be excluded from the traditional credit ecosystem. Thin file or subprime consumers have typically been viewed as a fringe and stigmatized segment of society. I can speak from personal experience and say this is not the case. With more than 100 million consumers lacking access to fair and affordable credit, we know this is mainstream America and we need to continue to provide solutions. As the consumer’s bureau, our goal is to help consumers and maintain access to credit. We’re proud of our latest innovations and will continue to identify new means to help consumers gain access to the financial services they need.
We are delighted to have been placed on the inaugural Financial Times’ 2020 Diversity Leaders list, released today and accessible here. The organisers spoke to more than 80,000 employees across Europe to build the list, asking employees to rate their own employers as well as other firms around multiple categorise, taking into consideration areas including age, gender, ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+ and overall diversity of ideas and backgrounds across the company. Over the last few years we’ve worked hard to focus on inclusion and diversity across our global business. We believe that embracing a truly inclusive culture, one where everyone has a real sense of belonging, is critical to building a diverse workforce and fostering innovation. Ultimately, it’s our ambition for our business to become as diverse as the people we serve around the world. We’re dedicated to encouraging diversity at every level within Experian. That means building our culture, 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. Letting people work flexibly, in the way that suits them and opens the door to new opportunities. One of the five key tenets of The Experian Way is “Value Each Other”. That means that each one of us is responsible for making this a great place to work. We treat each other with respect, trust and integrity. We support and invest in each other to help everyone achieve their potential and aspirations. We promote a culture of inclusivity and value diversity of all kinds, including thinking, knowledge and experience. Our goal is to embrace and celebrate the diversity of ideas and backgrounds across the company. This diversity of thinking, and the way we harness it at Experian, helps to fuel our innovation and ultimately our ongoing success as a business. Like many companies, we have more to do to be as inclusive as we would like to be. But we are proud of the work we’ve done to date, and we are delighted by the recognition given to us today.
Today, I’m pleased to share another strong set of Half Year results for our FY20 fiscal year. We have achieved 7% organic revenue growth, with total H1 growth of 8% when you include acquisitions. The performance reflects the continued success of our core business new product introductions, as well as rollout of our innovation agenda and the investments we have made in globally scalable products. At Experian we are helping our clients get better at acquiring, onboarding and managing their customers’ needs in the digital world. To do this, they are increasingly relying on data, combined with sophisticated analytics and decisioning capabilities, areas in which we excel. In addition, to helping businesses, we are continuing to expand our direct relationships with consumers. Over 70 million people across our three major markets now benefit from free Experian memberships, accessing information and tools to enable them to take control of their finances. A great example of this is Experian Boost in North America, where we enable consumers to voluntarily add payment histories for things like their mobile phone and utility bills to their credit profile. It’s been a successful year to date, but there is plenty more to come. With a continued focus on people, technology and innovation, we are revolutionising the way our industry operates – using the power of data, software and analytics to improve outcomes for everyone. To find out more, click here.
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.