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/.
World Cup fans will be watching the 2014 games across multiple devices, often simultaneously, according to an analysis from Experian Marketing Services, a global provider of integrated consumer insight, targeting, data quality and cross-channel marketing. Specifically, World Cup fans are 31 percent more likely than average to watch online video across multiple devices, with 64 percent of adult fans watching online video during a typical week, compared with 49 percent of all adults. This is according to Experian Marketing Services’ National Consumer Survey, a nationally representative, continuously fielded survey of approximately 25,000 U.S. adults, including both English and Spanish speakers. Experian Marketing Services also found that World Cup fans are: • 60 percent more likely to use their phone to keep up with sports • 65 percent more likely to stream video from a work computer • 20 percent more likely to multitask while watching TV • 37 percent more likely to use a digital tablet • 60 percent more likely to use sports apps on their phone during a typical week “Adult fans of the World Cup don’t need a TV to watch video,” said Bill Tancer, general manager, global research at Experian Marketing Services. “This is a digitally and technologically savvy audience that doesn’t care how they watch their favorite programs, just as long as they are able to watch them. Expect to see the 2014 World Cup broadcasted everywhere the fans are this year, whether that’s at their desk computer or during their morning commute.” According to Tancer, because World Cup fans are such heavy users of digital media while they watch TV, Experian Marketing Services will be analyzing key online and search trends throughout the 2014 games. The Experian Marketing Services’ 2014 World Cup Online Trends Dashboard will be updated every Monday from June 9 to July 13, 2014. The dashboard will reveal the most popular daily searches from World Cup fans, including top players, search terms driving traffic to FIFA.com and the most popular Websites for soccer updates. So far, data has shown that ESPN Soccernet.com is the leading Website for soccer updates and Cristiano Ronaldo is exponentially the most searched individual player. Experian Marketing Services’ live 2014 World Cup Online Trends Dashboard can be viewed here: http://ex.pn/1hBc46F “The World Cup is a unique event for viewers but also for marketers because it attracts a fully engaged, globally diverse audience that loves to shop and engage with brands for an entire month,” said Tancer. “Our analysis reveals that World Cup fans are 29 percent more likely to have a strong connection with branded goods and services placed in the context of TV shows. It’s not just that they are aware of and engaged with branded products; they also are more likely to buy those products. Interestingly, we found the opposite in our analysis of Olympics viewers.” What do these viewers like to buy? World Cup fans are frequent shoppers overall, but they have an affinity for upscale stores like Neiman Marcus, Lord & Taylor, Brooks Brothers, Nordstrom and Saks. They also shop at athletic stores like REI, Foot Locker, Modell’s and Nike and electronics stores like Apple.
Half of married couples in the U.S. say that credit scores were important to them when choosing a mate, according to the latest Experian Consumer Services survey comparing the relationship between marriage and credit. The study also showed that 95% of participants rate “financial responsibility” as important, with “physical attractiveness” and “career ambition” following at 86% and 77%, respectively. Even more surprising, married adults ranked financial compatibility high, even slightly higher than sex and intimacy. In fact, 73% of women and 60% of men stated that having a partner who is willing to communicate openly about personal finances and credit makes him/her more attractive. Check out what else married couples said about their relationship and finances in the complete summary of our survey results here: Love and Marriage… and Credit from Experian_US
According to new research from Experian Marketing Services, a global provider of integrated consumer insights, targeting, data quality and cross-channel marketing, mobile devices are playing an increasingly important role in how users make purchases across all categories. While purchases using a computer or digital tablet still reign supreme, transactions via mobile phones are on the rise, and marketers are poised to take advantage of this trend. The adoption of mobile marketing increased 17 percent in 2013, while 71 percent of marketers currently are engaging consumers in the mobile channel. This trend, among others, is highlighted in Experian Marketing Services’ recently released 2014 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report. The report is an annual go-to resource for marketers looking for key industry benchmarks, insights, technology trends and consumer data. “Using a mobile device as a shopping tool is one thing; using it to make a purchase is another,” said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research, Experian Marketing Services. “One industry in particular that marketers recently have taken advantage of is food. Consumers are increasingly moving from researching on their mobile devices to actually making food purchases on-the-go, including grocery home delivery and even onsite point-of-purchase, where available.” Mobile food purchase trends When it comes to food purchases, affluents are 12 percent more likely to purchase food products through their mobile phone, 29 percent more likely to purchase through their tablet and 30 percent more likely to purchase through their personal computer. Affluent consumers also are more likely to visit the Websites of popular family restaurants, as well as the leading reservations site, OpenTable.com. As of April 2014, the top five food Websites visited by affluents were: Charitable giving Among device owners, purchase rates consistently are higher on tablets and computers than on smartphones due to the larger screen. However, the one exception is charitable giving. Affluents are just as likely to have made a charitable donation from their smartphone as they are to have made one from their tablet, and contributions made from a computer are only marginally higher than those on tablets and phones. Charitable organizations have made donating as easy as sending a text, which is likely why charitable donations is the only category with mobile purchase rates as high as those from a tablet. “Marketers can take a page from the charitable sector’s playbook and streamline their own purchase process. This might include allowing repeat customers to conduct transactions using financial information on file, using mobile-optimized design for collecting payment information or other innovative approaches that allow the would-be customer to transact from anywhere,” added Tancer. Mobile travel purchase trends One category favored by affluent consumers is mobile travel purchases. Affluents are 16 percent more likely than average to book travel from a mobile phone, 42 percent more likely to book from a tablet and 31 percent more likely to book their travel through their personal computer. “The data highlighted in our Digital Marketer Report reveals that a demographic such as affluents, who are prime for booking travel, is only booking travel at marginally higher levels than average via mobile. This means that travel marketers can benefit from focusing efforts on streamlining the mobile booking process,” said Tancer. Overall, the report highlights how marketers can take advantage of this data to more successfully target and engage with their customers. The percentage of mobile phone owners who say they are interested in receiving advertising on their mobile phone has risen by 45 percent since 2010. Nearly one in 10 mobile phone owners today say that they are likely to buy products that they see advertised on their phones, up from 6 percent in 2010. The 2014 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report is available via a free download at http://ex.pn/PpijOx.
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