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/.
Home ownership has been found to be one of the greatest drivers of generational wealth, but the dream of owning a home can seem out of reach for millions of Americans. At Experian Mortgage, we believe our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, and leveraging the power of data, analytics and technology creates a better tomorrow for all. Our team is 100% committed to helping expand homeownership opportunities to populations traditionally left out of the market. For me personally, diversity, equity and inclusion – in all regards – is a personal passion. That’s why it’s especially thrilling and humbling to receive the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) 2022 Residential Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Leadership Award in the Market Outreach Strategies Non-lender category. Diversity, equity and inclusion is more than just a program for us. It drives our company’s mission of financial inclusion. We are proud to partner with nonprofit organizations including HomeFree-USA, the Urban Institute, UnidosUS and the National Urban League to break down barriers to homeownership through financial and credit education. Through our United for Financial Health program, we established the Home Preservation Grant to assist Black and African American homeowners at risk of losing their homes due to the negative impact of COVID-19. To date, homeowners in Atlanta, Chicago and the greater Washington, D.C. areas have benefitted. As a member of the MBA, Experian enthusiastically signed the Home for All Pledge, furthering its commitment to be a champion for change in addressing the barriers to sustainable housing for persons and communities of color. Additionally, several members of the Experian Mortgage team participate in the Housing Affordability Convergence in support of MBA’s initiative to facilitate new solutions to the nation’s rental and housing affordability challenges. For Experian Mortgage to be recognized by the MBA for our market outreach efforts is tremendously rewarding. It helps confirm we’re on the right track and we still have more to do. We look forward to providing partnership and support to clients and the industry to join us in our mission of financial inclusion. Click here to learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
For all of the ways money – and access to it – affects our lives, it’s unfortunate that it is not discussed regularly with young people. Sadly, when it is discussed, it’s often in response to highly emotional financial stress or difficulty rather than as a positive learning opportunity. Establishing a positive, fact-driven relationship with money early in life can be a critical factor in future success. Equitable access to financial tools and resources to create a better tomorrow can help everyone achieve their life’s goals. That’s why we’re proud to announce the launch of the Center for Financial Advancement® (CFA) Credit Academy. CFA is a key initiative of HomeFree-USA, and we’ve been partnering with the organization to provide complementary training to their housing counselors on financial and credit education information and resources. This new six-month program is for 250 scholars from 14 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). My colleagues on Experian’s Credit Education team are leading the program to help scholars gain an understanding of credit and its importance. The hope is they’ll become knowledge ambassadors for their peers, family and their communities. Experian research shows there are 28 million US consumers who are unable to participate in the mainstream financial ecosystem today because they don’t have a financial identity. Credit invisibility more frequently impacts underserved communities with 26% of Hispanic consumers and 28% of Black consumers unscoreable or invisible compared to 16% of White and Asian consumers. That can make homeownership, the greatest driver of generational wealth, an even bigger challenge for underserved communities. Ensuring these students are aware, informed and visible within the credit ecosystem will help them access more equitable lending when they’re ready to take steps to buy a car, own a home, and build generational wealth. In addition to live sessions and self-paced content, the CFA Credit Academy culminates with a hackathon competition in April, challenging all students to form teams of four at participating HBCUs to build the next best credit education program for their peers. The winning team will earn a $40,000 scholarship, sponsored by Experian. We can’t wait to see what the scholars come up with, and we look forward to sharing their ideas. To learn more about Experian’s work in diverse communities: visit www.experian.com/diversity.
We welcome today’s recommendations, which will help deliver a better and more equitable credit market for everyone. Comprehensive, accurate data delivers better outcomes for consumers, and bringing more data into the CRA ecosystem will further improve those outcomes. We are pleased to see the regulator taking action to ensure the UK financial system remains one of the most effective, innovative and competitive in the world. Experian shares the FCA’s view that there are opportunities to improve the operation of the credit information market in the UK, and was happy to co-operate fully with the FCA’s team during the multi-year Market Study process. A number of the remedies outlined in the FCA report were supported by Experian in a 2018 white paper, The Future of Credit Information. Amongst other things, this included establishing a base level of credit data for regulated CRAs to give consumers and lenders a clear, consistent baseline for credit reporting, while encouraging a competitive and innovative environment for non-regulated credit data and accurate insight. Experian aims for consistently excellent data across its enterprise. It invests continuously to improve data coverage, accuracy, timeliness, richness and increase credit visibility of consumers to the financial system, and it continues to innovate to improve credit outcomes for consumers.
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