Greater transparency in buy now, pay later activity is key to helping consumers build their credit histories and supporting responsible lending.
Experian North AmericaScott Brown, Group President, Financial Services
Affirm plans to report all pay-over-time loan products issued from April 1, 2025, and beyond, including Pay-in-4. The move will help drive greater transparency into the buy now, pay later market while helping consumers build their credit histories over time.
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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/.
Health information security breaches and identity theft have become an epidemic with losses occurring across the country. In fact, according to a recent Ponemon Institute study sponsored by the Medical Identity Fraud Alliance, medical ID theft has increased by 21.7 percent since 2013. Additionally, data from the Department of Health and Human Services indicates that health data on more than 120 million people has been compromised in more than 1,100 separate breaches since 2009. In May 2015, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the largest health insurer in the Mid-Atlantic region, reported a cyber-attack that affected 1.1 million past and present customers. This comes on the heels of the February 2015 data breach at Anthem, the second-largest health insurer in the United States that affected about 80 million customers, and Premera Blue Cross’ reported cyber-attack that may impact as many as 11 million people. These attacks reflect an unsettling pattern in cybercrime as identity thieves expand their target from the financial sector into healthcare.The mere fact that health records are now digital makes them a prime target. Providers have now moved rapidly into the digital space and many don’t deploy the same robust security measures taken by their banking counterparts. Furthermore, patients now have unprecedented access to their health information thanks to the widespread use of patient portals. With providers, payers, pharmacies, labs and patients all having access to sensitive records, information security becomes vulnerable to the weakest link in the data chain. To compound the issue, stolen medical identity information is extremely valuable. While a purloined credit card number might fetch $10 on the black market, a stolen medical identity can bring in more than five times that amount. So, what’s the solution? Other major industries including financial services, telecommunications and insurance have been using Big Data and analytics for years to protect their online portals, minimize risk and reduce fraud losses. When applied in a healthcare setting, it is these same techniques that will enable professionals to gain insights that can be turned into actions to protect patient data. For example, identity-matching tools can confirm whether a patient or a physician is who they claim to be, and analyzing data and usage characteristics can more effectively assess the risk of a patient’s remote interaction. In essence, by utilizing these techniques, data can be a force for good – good for the patient, good for the healthcare provider and good for the industry.
With rising insurance costs, deductibles and copays, some people struggle to afford the out-of-pocket expense that can come with seeking medical treatment. Because of this, some consumers decide not to seek treatment, which could have negative effects on their health and overall well-being. While it’s true healthcare organizations do provide financial assistance and often have charity programs to help offset the costs, most do not have the financial resources to absorb a substantial increase in patient debt that is being driven by consumers selecting high deductible health insurance plans then not being able to pay. The additional challenge is that many hospitals and healthcare providers do not have the means to quickly and accurately determine which patients qualify for charity programs, which are able to pay for care, and which patients need payment plans to help them soften the blow from an unforeseen healthcare event. To help address the problem, Experian provides hospitals, medical offices and clinics with unique data and analytics to provide insight into each patient’s financial situation. By leveraging healthcare-specific predictive models, Experian enables healthcare organizations to easily and efficiently determine which patients qualify for financial assistance programs. In short, Experian is using its data for good by helping make patients aware that they qualify for federal benefits or financial assistance, and effectively pairing them with the right program. From a provider standpoint, the data and insight that we provide not only enables them to determine which patients meet the requirements for Medicaid and other grant or charity programs, but also allows them to do so during the registration process, saving them time and effort on the back-end. Gaining insight into a patient’s financial situation also enables healthcare organizations to minimize or avoid potential bad debt, and improve reimbursement rates by connecting patients with financial programs or setting up a payment plan that fits within their current budget. The bottom line is, in order for healthcare organizations to continue to exist and assist patients in need, it’s important for them to remain financially secure. When healthcare organizations are better able to identify the difference between the patients who can pay versus those that are truly in need of and qualify for financial assistance, everybody wins. The patient doesn’t have to worry about a financial burden that they can’t afford and the healthcare organization can operate without the threat of closure. In order to protect their financial well-being, it’s important for healthcare organizations to identify those patients who qualify for financial assistance and those who can afford treatment. Dan Johnson, Experian’s Executive Vice President of Healthcare Strategy, discusses how big data can help answer that question.
A recent study conducted by Experian showed that a majority of vacationers overspend their budgets and rely on credit cards to provide extra funds. At the extreme end, more than half of millennial vacationers (52 percent) lean heavily on their credit cards, racking up vacation debt they’ll be repaying long after their trip comes to an end. The study also found that vacationers are only too happy to take a holiday from their normal good identity protection behaviors, as well. Whether a preventative action before the trip or a check-in after vacation ends, travelers are skipping easy opportunities to keep private information secure: for instance, only 38 percent of vacationers keep sensitive information protected in hotel safes while on holiday, and a disappointing 65 percent don’t have password protection enabled on their mobile phones. As summer begins, don’t give up on the strides you’ve made to spend responsibly and keep your private information secure. Staying in touch with your budget and protection practices year-round mean you won’t be off course when it’s time for a Labor Day weekend barbecue. View the complete survey findings and methodology here: Experian Summer Travel and Budgeting Survey Report, 2015 from Experian_US
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