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/.
We are delighted to celebrate Pride Month this June, and to mark the progress we are making to support our LGBTQ+ colleagues and communities around the world. A few of our milestones this year include: The addition of trans-inclusive healthcare to our UK and U.S. employee benefit packages. Receiving a Silver Award from Stonewall for our commitment to inclusion of LGBTQ people in the workplace. The continued use of our partnerships with Mermaids, Switchboard and Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) to provide resources, offer workshops and support campaigns that raise awareness of the discrimination faced by the community worldwide. Becoming a signatory of the Brazil Corporate Forum for LGBTQA+ companies. Participating in the first diverse talent recruitment fair organised by the Colombian LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Achieving a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in the U.S., and being designated a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality for the fourth consecutive year. Providing a process to assist trans and non-binary consumers with name changes to their Experian credit reports. Throughout the month, employee groups across our regions are hosting events that support our LGBTQ+ employees in their careers, that educate and inform allyship inside our business, and which help accelerate our ambition of delivering tools and services that create better financial health in the community. And yet, while we celebrate, we recognise that the LGBTQ+ community still faces many forms of discrimination around the world. We will continue to look for opportunities to support our Experian colleagues and customers who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, and to listen to those with lived experiences, so that we can better understand the role we can play in creating a better tomorrow and a stronger organisation – for everyone.
Two of Experian’s core values – innovation and financial inclusion – are on full display with Experian Boost™ being selected for Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas Awards, which celebrates the “broadest ideas … that have the potential to affect true systems change.” Experian Boost is a first-of-its-kind service designed to help consumers improve their credit profile and thrive financially. Nearly 9 million people have connected the service to report their on-time utility, telecom, and video streaming service payments. The service tackles inequity and exclusion from the credit economy by enabling consumers to add positive payment history that reinforces their personal financial reliability directly into their Experian credit file, which can potentially boost their credit score instantly. At Experian, we continually focus on expanding credit to underserved communities. Most recently we introduced Experian Go™, a brand-new program that can potentially help the nearly 50 million people in the United States who have a nonexistent or limited credit history. This Fast Company recognition also reflects our purpose and innovative culture focused on creating products and solutions that help consumers thrive, including Experian Boost in the UK and Serasa’s Score Turbo in Brazil. Every day at Experian we are investing in new technologies, talented employees, and innovation to help consumers and our clients maximize every opportunity we have to offer.
With consumers relying more heavily on the digital economy for online shopping, mobile banking, streaming content and other activities, businesses are challenged with recognizing each individual across different devices and channels. The challenge lies with the virtually endless number of touchpoints, attributes and values that can be associated with one’s identity, which is comprised of vast amounts of online and offline, dynamic, multidimensional data. As identities have become more complex, and with the definition of identity constantly evolving, the challenge is now even more pressing. Businesses are applying sophisticated analytics to more accurately identify individuals and create a positive, cohesive customer experience, but it’s critical that they remember: for each consumer – their data and identity are personal. To help companies address consumer recognition, Experian recently unveiled Experian Identity, an integrated approach that incorporates the full breadth of the company’s authoritative data, analytics and technology solutions to help businesses across any industry better connect with their consumers in more personalized, meaningful and secure ways. Experian Identity addresses the need that businesses have to respond to the rapidly evolving identity market with interconnected, scalable technology, products and services that optimize the consumer experience. Building Consumer Trust The key to success for businesses is building consumer trust through the effective use of identity. And that starts with securely managing customer data, while ensuring privacy and regulatory compliance. As a person’s identity evolves over time through major life events, such as opening a first credit card, getting a student loan, buying a car or house, receiving hospital care, or securing a line of credit, businesses must adopt a “customer first” mindset that reinforces their brand and delivers a tailored customer experience. That experience is further strengthened when a business incorporates identity-driven decision-making into every brand touchpoint. By providing a seamless and secure experience, businesses can help consumers prevent fraud and mitigate risk (to themselves and their customers), and build a more holistic view of each individual or small business so they can respond with timely, relevant and fair offers that better address their consumers’ needs.The resulting customer journey becomes demonstrably personalized, responsive, and valued. Constant Innovation Required Identity data sets are constantly growing with inputs from new interactions. Many future sources of data have yet to be even conceived or developed. Staying ahead of the identity market curve is vital, and it requires building and continually evolving an enterprise-scale identity solution that interconnects with your own unique data and systems to create attribute-rich profiles of your customers that work across any identity application. That’s Experian Identity. For more information on how Experian Identity helps optimize identity solutions, visit www.experian.com/identity-solutions and click this link to download the Making Identities Personal white paper.
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