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  I’m a Regional Sales Strategy Director for Experian in France. While Experian provides grants for entrepreneurs, we are always looking for ways to support new businesses beyond financial support. I had discovered an avenue for employees to volunteer as coaches to train budding entrepreneurs, so I brought the opportunity to Experian’s attention. Eight colleagues and I ended up bringing together entrepreneurs from the Ainée Business Incubator and a charity supporting young entrepreneurs from low-income areas in Paris for a day-long workshop in our Experian Paris office. The workshop was focused on helping entrepreneurs build elevator pitches, digital marketing plans and data protection strategies. I was running the elevator pitch session when I met an entrepreneur named Jocelyne. She wanted to set up a business importing Jamaican fruit and vegetables to the top restaurants in Paris. During the session, I coached Jocelyne and her peers through the basics of an elevator pitch, giving them opportunities to practice together in pairs before presenting to the group. Jocelyne had never given a pitch before, but she did an amazing job. She decided to pretend she was pitching Alain Ducasse – one of the big three Michelin star chefs in Paris. She talked as though he was in the room, which brought her pitch to life. She made her business sound so tasty, I was hungry myself by the end. Jocelyne had been quiet at the start of the workshop, but after giving that pitch, you could see this fresh sense of confidence in her as a new light came into her eyes. By helping one entrepreneur in Paris nail her business pitch, I got to help inspire a small amount of confidence to help Jocelyne turn her business dream into a reality. It was amazing and touching to see that kind of transformation. Read more #ExperianStories from our colleagues around the world.  

Alternative data opens up doors to financial access for consumers – and Experian has been at the forefront of collecting, using and advocating for the use of alternative data for many years.  This topic was explored and analyzed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in a hearing today in Charleston, West Virginia. Experian is a big advocate for full-file reporting, which means that we support the widespread reporting of alternative data—including, rental payments, utility payments and cellular telephone payments to name a few.  For a large segment of the population, the reporting of these types of payments could provide opportunities to establish and/or build a credit file. We believe consumer behavior has evolved and technology has advanced in a way that will soon enable Experian to facilitate lending to this population that we still call credit invisible. We are actively working to make these people visible, and to help them get access to responsible lending. For this reason, Experian supports enactment of the Credit Access and Inclusion Act (H.R. 435), which would allow consumers to benefit from the inclusion of alternative data into credit files. Consumers are at the heart of everything we do and this is why we chose to sponsor a two-year grant with the Credit Builders Alliance (CBA). This grant will enable us to work with affordable housing providers and public housing authorities to aid them in reporting rent payments to the credit bureaus in order to provide their low and moderate income residents with a valuable credit build opportunity. The project is ongoing and we are hopeful that this will help and empower many consumers and that this model of rental data reporting will continue to flourish in the future. Experian has conducted several studies looking at how the inclusion of alternative data could improve the lives of many Americans: After Experian began incorporating on-time rental payments to credit files through Experian RentBureau in 2011, we released an analysis in July 2014 that revealed the inclusion of on-time rental payments to credit files helps unbanked consumers integrate into the mainstream banking system. We also conducted a study on the impact of alternative reporting on-time utility payments in credit reports. Experian found that including these figures in credit reports would cause a 15 percent increase in those considered prime, which means those that pose little risk to lenders, as well as a 50 percent drop in the number of consumers considered to have a poor (sub-prime) credit history. In addition to these studies, other third parties have made similar findings.  One study by the Policy and Economic Research Council (PERC) and the Brookings Institution, found that when energy and utility companies report both positive and negative data, those without a credit history dropped to 5 million. Experian has demonstrated that incorporating new data sources into credit files is a positive step for consumers because it moves them from being unscorable to scorable, and we believe CFPB’s continued attention on this important initiative could help millions of Americans finally obtain the loans and credit that were previously out of reach. By building a comprehensive picture of data points, this can immeasurably help underserved populations, including young adults, minorities and immigrants, access newfound opportunities. Credit bureaus like Experian can then use this data for good by building profiles of these consumers, many of whom would be able to then obtain credit for the first time. It ultimately unlocks greater potential for our economy.

Working in partnership with British charity, the National Literacy Trust, Experian has helped to analyze literacy levels across England. The study reveals that 86% of English parliamentary constituencies contain at least one area with serious literacy issues. By using our socio-demographic classification system, Mosaic, and harnessing The National Literacy Trust’s expertise, we have been able to create a literacy vulnerability score to measure the reading abilities of each region. The data illustrates the need to move away from nation-wide strategies to tackle literacy problems and move to more targeted local solutions. Although there are clear hot spots, the report found that literacy vulnerability is not restricted to regions with low income or social deprivation. The National Literacy Trust has shared the report with British Members of Parliament with an aim to help them better understand and respond to the specific literacy challenges in their constituency. Key highlights from the report: The constituency with the greatest literacy problems is Middlesbrough, closely followed by Barking in London Literacy issues are intensely localised Inner cities and their surrounding areas dominate the list of locations with a need for the greatest literacy support Continue to read more details from the report.