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.
Read Moreio55 Button 2- Learn more Primary button Secondary button Related Posts
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/.
As part of the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, Experian is celebrating Lunar New Year. This article is by executive co-sponsors of Experian’s Asian American Employee Resource Group (ERG): Dacy Yee, Chief Customer Officer and Jimmy Cheung, SVP of Information Security and Compliance. Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese New Year or Spring Festival, is celebrated in various Asian countries such as China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and others. For some cultures, it’s a 15-day long celebration filled with symbols and traditions that have different meanings. 2020 is the Year of the Rat, which is the first of all the zodiac animals. The Rat is seen as a sign of wealth and surplus in Chinese culture, and those born on the Year of the Rat are optimistic, energetic and likable by all! See the table below to determine your zodiac animal. In our families, the preparation for the Lunar New Year celebration starts a week before the New Year day. We clean the house thoroughly to remove any bad luck from the preceding year and decorate the interior with red objects—a color often associated with good fortune, wealth and longevity in the Chinese culture. Back when we were young, our parents would buy us new outfits to make sure that we looked presentable when visiting friends and families, and would also allow us unlimited access to sweets and treats, as it symbolized a sweet year ahead. The holiday has always been about more than just the coming of a new year. Lunar New Year meant spending time with loved ones, indulging in a delicious Asian feast, and partaking in age-old traditions that gave us a sense of pride and adoration for our culture. These are just some of the things that make the holiday so special to us (that, and receiving hong baos—red envelopes with money—from our elders). This year, our Asian American ERG worked hard to put on an outstanding Lunar New Year; it's our group's largest annual event! Experian enjoyed a diverse cultural showcase of seven different countries, a Chinese sleeve dance, Tinikling (Filipino stick dance), a Taiwanese aboriginal dance, a catered lunch and more. Tinikling is a traditional Philippine folk dance that involves two people tapping and sliding bamboo while dancers step over and in between the sticks. Our Asian American ERG performed tinikling for us today during our #LunarNewYear celebration! 🧧🐀 pic.twitter.com/JiwfzXp3wq — Experian (@Experian) February 6, 2020 We are also proud to announce we partnered with the Center for the Pacific Asian Family (CPAF) and hosted a donation drive to assist in their commitment to ending domestic and sexual violence in Asian Pacific Islander (API) communities. Many of us started the Lunar New Year on a positive note, and we want to ensure that’s true for those in need as well As always, we are so grateful to Experian for providing an environment where we are not only allowed but encouraged to bring our whole selves to work every day. Through various events hosted at Experian campuses across the country, we were able to impact 1,500 employees and expose them to the wonderful cultures of Asia. It is an honor to be able to share this part of our lives with our colleagues and show them how beautiful and rich various Asian cultures are. We look forward to a healthy and prosperous new year. 恭喜發財! Gong Hay Fat Choy! Jimmy Cheung Co-Executive Sponsor Asian American Employee Resource Group Dacy Yee Co-Executive Sponsor Asian American Employee Resource Group Photos taken by Nhan T. Nguyen.
Experian's game plan is focused on improving the financial health of consumers everywhere. As part of that journey, we recently went to Miami, Florida, ahead of the Big Game, with pro football legend and American Ninja Warrior host Akbar Gbajabiamila to discuss how Experian Boost is helping millions increase their credit scores. Gbajabiamila, author of “Everyone Can be a Ninja,” is passionate about helping people develop a financial game plan and he understands having a good credit score is a key component of good financial health. “There’s something I’m truly passionate about and it’s financial literacy. Credit scores are something so many people hear about, but they don’t know how to interact with them. Experian has a platform that allows people to personally impact their credit scores. You can literally take your everyday utility bills, add them into your Experian credit report and get credit for that,” said Gbajabiamila. The days leading up to the Big Game provided an exciting time for Gbajabiamila to share with consumers across the country about how Experian Boost is instantly improving credit scores and helping people take control of their credit. In fact, Akbar’s take on the important role credit scores play in financial health was enthusiastically received by many on-air hosts who echoed the need to speak about it more frequently. As Akbar shared, “Whether you’re a professional athlete or a fan of professional sports, it’s important that you pay attention to your credit report. And Experian Boost is the right step.” View highlights from our trip to Radio Row in the video below and learn more about Experian Boost by visiting www.Experian.com/BoostAmerica.
Explore Experian’s insights for customer identity and its interrelationship with security, convenience, and personalization, from consumers and businesses Businesses often talk about creating the ultimate digital experience for customers but far less about the interrelationship between security, convenience, and personalization. This results in siloed security measures at major decision points across the customer journey. And, it’s a disconnect that’s perpetuated through equally siloed CRM systems that strive to identify customer preferences but fail to do so in a consistent and appealing way. The impact on consumers is that they are dragged through a maze of security and risk protocols while at the same time being targeted or re-targeted products and services that are not always relevant. We challenged senior executives at 650 companies to think about whether they can accurately identify their customers and meet their customers’ needs for a relevant experience to not only help them create a more trusted relationship with a consumer but also to reduce fraud losses. We also surveyed over 6,500 consumers who had a lot to say about what constitutes best-in-class digital customer experience. Perception versus reality Our study found that 95% of businesses worldwide believe they are accurately identifying their customers yet 55% of consumers don’t feel recognized. In our survey last year, 84% of businesses said that if they could better identify their customers, then they could easily spot fraud. However, 57% of business reported having significantly higher fraud losses this year versus last year. How can this be true if businesses are in fact as strong as they believe they are at recognizing their customers and thus, presumably by extension, fraudsters? This then begs the question: how are businesses defining “recognition” and is it really working? Are they recognizing a customer to a person or are they able to categorize a customer into prescriptive buckets such as broad demographic delineations? Expectations for customer engagement Our study also found that 74% of consumers say security is still the most important factor when deciding to engage with a business online. This has been a consistent finding over the past two years. In fact, consumers are even willing to give more personal information for greater security and easier access to their accounts later, once they are comfortable. Despite this, over half of businesses are prioritizing personalization over security when making improvements to their customer experience. Consumers acknowledged experiencing and appreciating the changes businesses are making to their digital experience however security remained to be their most important criteria for engaging or continuing to engage with a business. What now? Desires for ultimate experience and concerns for security are still shaping the digital relationship between consumers and businesses where identity is at the heart of every customer decision and interaction. We believe businesses will need to invest further in data, infrastructure, and advanced analytics in order to get to a point of truly recognizing a consumer digitally as opposed to categorizing for broad brush pseudo personalization purposes. Only then will businesses start to make a dent in fulfilling the high consumer expectations for recognition as well as in mitigating rising fraud. Download our report (15 min read) and find out more about: Challenges standing in the way of businesses trying to identify their customers What different businesses and countries are doing to improve identity authentication The new type of customer journey that executives believe will improve the digital experience
In this article…
