Innovation

As businesses, we want to know our consumers and their habits so we can offer the best customer experience possible, whether in store or online.

The world in 2018 is defined by data. Vast quantities of information flow through our lives like threads across an elaborate tapestry. On a micro level, these threads bind the business world together. But they also come together to weave a picture of the economy that is colourful, detailed, and uniquely fascinating. At Experian, we process more than 1.5 billion records per year, making us specialists in the processing and understanding of this data - and in making sure it is used for the benefit of consumers and businesses. To share our unique perspective, we’ve created our first ever Spending Power Index. The index looks at the UK’s income and spending habits, including both a detailed view of the present, and insight into longer term trends and the nation’s changing preferences. Giving businesses the bigger picture Stepping back from day-to-day business to look at the whole economy is a chance to identify new opportunities and work out the best ways of adapting to new challenges. The insights we’re providing through the Spending Power Index are designed to fuel that process by offering a view of existing and emerging trends across all demographic segments of the UK economy. What is the Spending Power Index? We’ve defined ‘Spending Power’ as a combination of key factors: Average income growth over time Levels of spending for one demographic group when compared to another Levels of spending as a proportion of incomes These combined factors reveal a wealth of hidden information about income and spending. All these insights have been drawn from Experian’s modelled data using secondary sources such as our ‘Financial Strategy Segmentation’ (FSS) tool. The data for this comes from a range of publicly and commercially available sources, such as the edited Electoral Roll, the UK Census and permission-based market research data taken, for example, from the lifestyle questionnaires many of us complete. New insights and confirming market trends Some of the insights revealed by the index have been surprising, while others fit into social trends that are already well understood. We found some areas of significant shift, such as the movement away from owning possessions and towards spending on life experiences. But we also confirmed some new and fascinating trends such as the emergence of Generation X’s forty somethings as the biggest earners and spenders in the UK economy. Find out more by reading the full Spending Power Index report here.  

I’m delighted to confirm the launch of Experian Analytics on Demand in the UK. Following a highly successful launch in the US, it will be available to businesses across the UK and EMEA regions this Autumn. Ascend is an integral part of the suite of market-leading Experian innovations that we’re bringing to market over coming months, all of which will accelerate the ability of our UK clients to harness the full potential of big data. It helps businesses of all shapes and sizes analyse vast volumes of information faster, more effectively, and with deeper insight than ever before. Ascend puts a new suite of data tools in the hands of in-house analytical teams, allowing them to build their own predictive models to develop business strategies and make real-time decisions – ultimately supporting their abilities to bring better services to market more quickly and with better results. The digital transformation of our marketplace has meant that customers are constantly demanding a faster, more responsive service and that has put increasing pressure on businesses. Our research has found that only one in three businesses are employing advanced analytics technologies to develop a deeper, more meaningful understanding of their data. Just 29% currently combine both traditional and non-traditional data sources to gather more insight. While, two in five businesses still rely on instinct and subjective opinion to make decisions. Ascend harnesses the power of open-source technology, combining it with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to help businesses unlock insights and take decisive actions in the moments that matter. Bringing unique scale, speed and intelligence that deliver the best results for both businesses and our customers. It’s not simply about changing the way you manage your data; it’s about modernising the way you manage your business. This is a very exciting time for our industry and I’m looking forward to working with both our existing partners and new clients to demonstrate the many opportunities that this new platform can bring. For an early view of the platform, please follow the link here to register your interest.  

At Experian, advanced technology drives our commitment to enhancing the customer experience. For us, it’s all about innovation and creating products and experiences that meet the demands of today’s tech-savvy consumers, businesses and diverse client base. To accommodate ever-changing market conditions, we leverage a unique mix of our own data centers and cloud platforms, as well as provide standard APIs so developers can easily connect to our systems and data. And, machine learning plays a key role in this commitment to innovation. Steven Norton, reporter for the Wall Street Journal, recently reported on how we’re operationalizing machine learning technology to manage an increasingly complex IT environment, and drive business value for customers. Experian’s use of real-time monitoring has allowed CIO Barry Libenson to show an empirical decline in downtime and critical IT issues year-over-year. With companies looking to artificial intelligence to deliver insights into their customers and the business, credit reporting firm Experian PLC is tapping machine learning to better understand how its own applications behave, with limited human intervention. Click here to read the full article published in the Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal.

We often talk about the balance between customer security and convenience, but rarely do businesses track the impact of identifying customers and managing fraud risks as two sides of the same coin. According to our recent Global Fraud and Identity Report, 84 percent of business believe if they were certain about a customer’s identity, the need for risk mitigation would be reduced. Being able to better identify our customers should be at the crux of all our campaigns. Simply put, the faster and better you recognize your customers, the faster and better you recognize fraud. And we are not alone. We feel the industry agrees with us. Two of the world’s leading research firms, Forrester and Gartner, both recently released reports regarding the state of identity, and we are thrilled to have been recognized in both. The Forrester report, “Top Trends Shaping Identity Verification (IDV) in 2018,” which was authored by analysts Andras Cser and Merrit Maxim, and published in March 2018, discusses the importance of easy-to-use identity verification tools and the top trends shaping identity verification. Experian was cited as the most used vendor for identity verification based on a survey of global network security decision makers. The report also shared an example where a North American bank improved its identity theft detection rate by 15 percent by using Experian’s identity verification services. We were also included in Gartner’s April 2018 Market Guide for Identity Proofing and Corroboration, which helps companies understand the value of identity when it comes to protecting customers and revenue. Experian was one of only three vendors that met all the capabilities criteria recommend by Gartner. The guide, authored by Ant Allan, Jonathan Care, Dorothy Luong and Tricia Phillips, also points out several key findings regarding identity proofing and corroboration. Just recently, Experian was named one of the top 100 most innovative companies in the world by Forbes for the fifth consecutive year, and this is icing on the cake. We are thrilled to be included in these reports and are committed to helping businesses provide a seamless identity verification process with accuracy and simplicity, and one that doesn’t negatively impact the customer journey. Ultimately, investing time and resources to develop the best tools for identity verification goes a long way. Not only will your business leaders feel more confident in your organization’s ability to detect and prevent fraud, it’ll also save your business the time and money that you would spend on eliminating fraud after it happens. All our fraud and identity services are available through our award-winning Experian CrossCore platform, the industry’s first open platform for fraud and identity services. Gartner Disclaimer Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Innovation is at the heart of our business and our culture. It is one of the reasons we’re proud to be named one of the top 100 most innovative companies in the world for the fifth year in a row by Forbes magazine. In the publication's eighth annual list of the "World's Most Innovative Companies," Experian climbed to the rank of 57th and is amongst the top 10 most innovative companies headquartered in Europe. Technology, innovation and new sources of data are fusing to create an unprecedented number of new ways for us to solve pressing business and consumer challenges. This accolade underscores our commitment to innovation, and using the power of data and technology to transform lives, businesses and economies for the better. At Experian, we have created a culture of continuous innovation focused on opportunities for businesses and consumers in today’s digital and data economy. Just a few examples include our involvement with the TechCity FinTech4All competition,  which aims to discover a new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs who will change the future of finance, and our Experian MicroAnalytics work, which has extended over 5 billion credit offers to the world’s unbanked people. Experian has jumped up 40 places in this year’s Forbes ranking, placing us alongside some of the world’s leading technology companies including Tesla, Netflix and Amazon. This accolade demonstrates investors' confidence in Experian’s ability to innovate, both today and in the years ahead, and is a testament to the tireless work of our employees. Even more exciting is that we’re leading our industry in innovation. This is reflected in Experian being the only credit bureau to make the list this year. And innovation experts agree.  According to author Greg Satell, who profiled Experian in his highly touted business book Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age, “Experian is the manifestation of a culture of discovery that enables it to grow and evolve while remaining at the forefront of innovation.” The key to our success going forward is to continue to actively seek out unresolved problems and to create new products and technologies that will helps transform the way businesses operate and consumers thrive in today’s society. Learn more about some of our pioneering innovations here: Connecting Businesses in Brazil Through Data Analytics Experian DataLabs Is Experimenting with a ‘Voice to Credit’ Feature Delivering Value in the Digital Age: Exploring UK Attitudes Towards Data We're on the Brink of a New Era of Innovation FinTech Breakthrough Selects Experian for “Consumer Lending Innovation Award” in 2018 Data on Demand – Unlock New Insights, Create Opportunities Faster than the Speed of Fraud -- CrossCore

Experian MicroAnalytics has surpassed a record 5 billion credit offers, demonstrating our commitment to helping people in emerging markets create credit profiles and improve financial well-being. In emerging markets around the world, people have limited access to financial products, especially credit. At Experian MicroAnalytics we’ve developed a sustainable solution to provide billions of people with access to financial products, easily accessed through their mobile phones, unlocking the power of alternative data in countries across Latin America, Asia, Africa and beyond. “We’re thrilled to have extended over five billion credit offers,” said Elio Vitucci, CEO of Experian MicroAnalytics. “2017 was our fastest-growing year, and we are now extending over 270 million credit offers every month. Our goal is to help people in emerging markets build a strong financial identity. We build financial identities using mobile phone behavioral data, one of the richest sources of customer insight, and unlock an initial set of financial products. As customers use these products, they strengthen their financial identities and obtain access to an increasingly wider set of financial services.” While only a minority of people in emerging markets have access to banking services and even fewer have access to credit services, the vast majority have a mobile phone, most on a prepaid plan. Experian MicroAnalytics partners with mobile network operators around the world, using mobile behavioral data to start creating initial financial identities for people. With these financial identities, customers can start to gain access to simple but useful financial products, such as airtime credit. As customers continue to take and repay their borrowed airtime credits successfully, they strengthen their financial identities and progressively unlock a wider, more complete set of financial services. This creates a virtuous circle, where in time customers graduate to a full set of financial products. “We help consumers in emerging markets to build a financial identity, unlocking access to financial products such as loans, credit cards, insurance and more, all available via their mobile devices,” Vitucci added. “These financial products fuel economic development, stimulate growth and have a positive impact on the quality of life for billions of people.”

Elio Vitucci, CEO of Experian MicroAnalytics, authored the op-ed Financial Empowerment for the Emerging Market Consumer in U.S. News & World Report. To date, Experian MicroAnalytics has extended over 4.9 billion credit offers to the world’s unbanked people, and nearly half of those offers were in the past year. The new emerging market consumer is becoming empowered with tools and services needed for a better quality of life and economic vitality. Experian MicroAnalytics contributes to global progress by helping those with no credit history gain access to credit and financial products for their businesses and personal needs. In regions where financial history doesn't exist, understanding creditworthiness is a challenge. While only a small minority of people in emerging markets have access to credit services, the vast majority have access to mobile services — most of them on a prepaid plan. As such, an alternate credit identity can now be established. Financial services in the emerging world are drastically underserving the potential banked population. Long-term economic growth in the emerging world hinges on access to financial services. Unlocking the new consumer's credit capability is the new financial frontier. Learn more about how Experian is empowering emerging market consumers with financial products and services to improve quality of life and increase prosperity around the world.

Identity fraud is at an all-time high, and it can have devastating consequences on a person’s life. Victims of identity fraud may have to file for bankruptcy or deal with debt, which can sometimes cause personal relationships to suffer. Elderly people in particular are at the greatest risk of fraud out of any age group, as they tend to more trusting of phone calls, house calls and email scams. It’s my job at Experian to arm them with the tools they need to prevent identity fraud. The number one challenge in helping prevent identity fraud is lack of awareness. People simply don’t know all the risks, so education is a paramount priority. At Experian, we conducted research on the best way to educate different age groups, and found that it varied widely. While younger people are best reached online, older people are more responsive to face-to-face activities, which is part of the reason they are more susceptible to doorstep scams. To help educate elderly people, we found we needed to go out into the community and literally put useful information into people’s hands. As part of these efforts, my team at Experian first worked with the Outreach Solutions organization to help older people in Nottinghamshire, England, understand the dangers of fraud. The pilot campaign, “Tackling Fraud,” reached 15,000 U.K. residents over age 55, teaching them how to tackle the threat of fraud. We armed these individuals with expert advice on how to spot suspicious activity and stop it from happening to them or the people they care about. Given the success and great reception we had in Nottinghamshire, it was clear that this movement could continue growing. According to Experian research, Glasgow is one of the areas with the highest number of identity fraud cases in Scotland. We’d been testing a new television advertisement in Glasgow – marking the first time that identity fraud has ever been advertised on TV in the U.K. – so I made the case to run the next iteration of our Tackling Fraud campaign there, too. In partnership with the Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector, we worked with a range of individuals and community groups to provide fraud prevention training to more than 30,000 elderly people in the city.\ We’re dedicated to helping the elderly with our Tackling Fraud campaign, putting people in control of their lives by giving them the information they need to help them protect themselves. I hope that one day we can take this project throughout the U.K. Written by: Phil Rance, Director of Product Identity, Experian Consumer Services