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/.
At Experian, our mission is to increase financial inclusion by empowering consumers. Through our corporate responsibility work, we have always been committed to using our resources to help more people improve their financial health through non-profit partnerships, data analytics, products and services, volunteering and educational programmes. Now, we have an opportunity to reach even more people in hugely underserved communities. Experian has launched the global United for Financial Health project to empower vulnerable people to improve their financial health through education and action. Through the United for Financial Health programme, Experian is partnering with non-profit organizations across the globe to deliver tools and resources to help those affected the most, and certainly, COVID-19 has amplified the need. We have already launched our first three partnerships in the U.S: Operation HOPE – an organisation whose aim is to uplift disenfranchised youth and adults from poverty to thriving in a credit ecosystem. One of the goals of the partnership is to help ethnic minority groups who are struggling to raise and sustain a 700-credit score or higher. By helping people raise their credit scores we can shift their mindset from one of “survival” to “thriving” and make a real difference in their lives. For some, a higher score may mean the ability to purchase a new car, have a credit card, own a home, or simply save money for their family. Black Girl Ventures – a non-profit that advocates for Black and Brown women entrepreneurs and their small businesses. Our partnership will provide financial resources to help scale its BGV Style Pitch Competition and Amplify BGV Programs and we are a proud sponsor of BGV’s new weekly podcast, “From Hustling to Handling, How to Stay in Business.” Together, we will curate entrepreneurial education content to assist a broader audience with knowledge and best practices related to financial literacy and wealth management. NAACP Empowerment Programs – part of the largest and most pre-eminent civil rights organization in the U.S. Our partnership creates The Home Preservation Grant, which will provide grants to African American homeowners at risk of losing their homes because of COVID-19-related hardship. In the UK, we are delighted to launch a new partnership with the charity National Numeracy. Numeracy is the strongest predictor of a person’s financial literacy and is therefore crucial to their financial health. However, poor numeracy is widespread, and disproportionately affects low-income communities where people are most at risk of marginalization from the COVID-19 pandemic. Thankfully, confidence and competence with numbers is within everyone’s grasp, with the right support. Working together, we can inspire and support over 60,000 people to take positive steps towards building their confidence and competence with numbers, helping many of those most affected by this crisis take their next step towards improved financial health. We have already made good progress in a relatively short space of time and will continue to invest our energy into building further partnerships to reach more people in need of support. This is just the beginning of our journey, but we are confident that we can make a huge difference to millions of people in communities across the globe.
I still remember buying my first home in Southern California in my mid 20’s. After going through countless open houses and unfamiliar living rooms, I found a home that met my needs. I decided to take the plunge, put an offer in, and hope for the best. It was a roller coaster of emotions – excitement, fear, joy, and pride. Owning a home is considered a mark of financial achievement. It not only builds generational wealth but also contributes to the generational vibrancy of communities. For many, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed that dream further out of reach or threatened to take it away. That’s why we are thrilled to announce the launch of the Home Preservation Grant. We are partnering with the NAACP Empowerment Programs for this pilot program, which will provide up to $10,000 in grants to select African American homeowners at risk of losing their homes because of COVID-19-related hardship. The Home Preservation Grant is part of our United for Financial Health program here at Experian, which aims to empower and protect vulnerable consumers to improve their financial health through education and action. For this pilot, we are targeting homeowners in the Atlanta, Ga. area and we plan to expand the program to other cities across America in the future. The application process is open now and ends on December 8. Grant recipients will be announced on December 14, providing what we hope will be some much needed relief in time for the holidays.
2020 has been a year that has significantly impacted us all and the shockwaves are likely to challenge us for some time to come. One of the big disappointments for the data and tech industry is the postponement or cancellation of a number of major events – including the likes of Women in Data, which Experian was a proud Gold sponsor in 2019. Although we are not able to celebrate the Women in Data flagship event in person this year, we are thrilled to be an official partner of the very first WiD Week. This is a fantastic opportunity that will allow us to virtually gather together, support each other, and learn while in a safe online environment, driven by content that the Women in Data community needs right now. We are particularly excited to be hosting a session on Tuesday 24 November, which will focus on our support of Girls in Data. In this session, Experian’s Emily Capewell and Louise Maynard-Atem will be providing some thoughts on their involvement with the recent data challenge we hosted during the last lockdown. The data challenge was designed to help inspire young girls and boys to pursue a career in STEM. Louise will also be speaking on Thursday about her experience of 2020 and how we can action change as we head into 2021. This will be one of six short stories to mark Women in Data’s sixth birthday. We are extremely excited to be involved with WiD Week and while it will be slightly different this year, we hope our involvement can help empower and encourage more women into the data industry, supporting the next generation of data scientists who can help shape the future. You can find out more about WiD Week here.
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