World

We are delighted to have completed the acquisition of a 60% stake in Arvato Financial Solutions Risk Management Division (AFS RM), expanding our presence in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (DACH) and bringing Germany’s second largest credit bureau into Experian.  It is an incredibly exciting moment for us both and marks a significant step forward in Experian EMEA’s growth ambitions.        Together, we form a powerful new partnership in Europe’s economic powerhouse. With AFS RM’s local expertise and sector knowledge of industries like e-commerce, telecoms and insurance, and our global experience and innovation in data, analytics, software, and technology platforms, we will redefine what’s possible for our customers.     AFS RM brings market presence with high-quality risk, fraud and identity management products and solutions tailored for key industries.   We bring scale, expertise, and innovative products like Experian One and Ascend Analytics on Demand.  Together, we will offer the best new technologies into these markets, delivering broad coverage and innovation that enables existing and new customers to make better, faster decisions, ultimately delivering greater access to finance for people across the region.     Our new partnership will be branded Experian, which is just one of the ways we’re welcoming AFS RM to the Experian family.  I’m delighted it will be led by Kai Kalchthaler as CEO, Experian DACH, who will ensure we help businesses find and fulfill their potential, so they can go further with us.  Watch how we’re redefining possible, today, tomorrow, together here.     

Juniper Research released their Online Payment Fraud 2020-2024 report in May highlighting key trends in digital fraud, it’s implications on businesses and consumers as well as a competitive analysis for advanced solutions available to secure digital payments. Experian is proud to have contributed to the research and its CrossCore solution considered on their Fraud Detection & Prevention Leaderboard. Key takeaways: We’re in the middle of a payment revolution with mobile payments on the rise. Nearly half the world will be using digital wallets by 2024, with transaction values to increase by almost 60% to over $9 trillion in 2024. Omnichannel expectations are creating new challenges for online payments as new technologies for creating convenience are being exploited by cybercriminals, but it’s preventable. Juniper Research forecasts a $25.5 billion eCommerce transaction fraud loss in 2019, a 17% increase in 2018. By 2024, this will double to almost $50.5 billion. The Fraud Detection & Prevention Leaderboard is an assessment based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative measures but not considered a ranking or exhaustive list of solutions on the market. Experian’s flagship solution, CrossCore, just released its latest advanced features and offers unique functionality that lives up to its layered approach for mitigating fraud and authenticating customers. CrossCore is an integrated digital identity and fraud risk platform that combines rich data assets from Experian with identity insights and capabilities from its curated partner ecosystem. Through sophisticated orchestration, it applies advanced analytics to give businesses confidence in every transaction. CrossCore combines risk-based authentication, identity proofing, and fraud detection into a single cloud platform to make real-time risk decisions throughout the customer lifecycle. The platform is designed to help clients differentiate between their good and bad customers, without disrupting good customers, or increasing customer friction in their attempts to stop fraud. Key profile features: Our partner network, some of which we don’t publicly disclose, cover a variety of categories including, behavioural biometrics (Biocatch), traditional biometrics (Daon), document verification (Mitek, Acuant, Onfido), call centre risk assessments (TrustID, NextCaller), email verification (Emailage), Alternative Data (Ekata, Global Data Consortium, HelloSoda, Pipl), Mobile Phone Verification (Boku/Danal) and Chargeback Management (Chargebacks911). Customers include banks, eCommerce merchants and retail companies, telecommunications providers, travel providers, health providers, insurance companies, and public sector organizations. Advanced Decisioning: CrossCore is designed to leverage the complete raw output in our partner network to perform advanced analytics via Experian’s native machine learning infrastructure. This approach includes a hybrid of Unsupervised models (to generate features), Supervised generic or custom models per use case, and a business rules infrastructure. This provides high levels of accuracy to the client, leading to significantly reduced friction and operational costs. Find out how Experian’s capabilities compare and hear from our experts on how to balance security with convenient customer experiences.  

Experian, the global information services company, has agreed to join FDATA in support of its Open Banking initiatives around the world.  The commitment includes membership in the UK, US, and EMEA. It reflects Experian's strategy for rolling out Open Banking services across its global footprint that includes South America, South East Asia including Australia and South Africa.   Access to Open Banking will complement the organisation's network of credit bureaux, identity verification, and automated decision services that it already provides to consumers and businesses. Open Banking enables Experian to provide additional insight into consumers' and businesses' financial wellbeing.  Lisa Fretwell, Managing Director of Data Services at Experian, said: "Joining FDATA helps us to exchange knowledge, thought leadership, and drive innovation at a time when we are increasing our strategic commitment and investment plans for Open Banking. This will also include the UK's Open Finance initiative."  Experian helps consumers and businesses to engage with and understand their finance through combining its bureau data with insights generated from Open Banking.   Its consumer services business engages with more than 7 million consumers in the UK and more than 30 million in the U.S, empowering people to manage their money and access services at the best available rates. Meanwhile, Experian also works with a range of businesses – from financial services to utilities, and insurance to the public sector – so is well placed to drive successful Open Banking initiatives.  Working with FDATA and its members will further improve Experian's prospects of encouraging governments and regulators to commit to delivering the highest possible standards in Open Banking.   "Our membership will help us gain insights into policy issues that affect Open Banking and drive initiatives so consumers and businesses can gain greater access to fair and affordable credit," said Paul Haddon, Vice President of Governance & Strategic Initiatives. "Our launch of adding consumer-permissioned data to Experian credit reports called Experian Boost is a great example of how we are innovating and improving financial access for millions of people."  Launched in 2019, Experian Boost allows consumers to add positive payment history for telecommunications and utility bills to their Experian credit reports, which can possibly increase their credit scores instantly.   Gavin Littlejohn, FDATA Global Chair, added, "FDATA is delighted at Experian's decision to broaden the scope of their membership, a strategy that aligns a significant global footprint with FDATA's ongoing expansion and engagement in multiple markets. A first step in the journey towards Open Finance, Open Banking is undergoing international proliferation. FDATA shapes and influences this dialogue at the earliest possible stages for the good of the consumer and the health of the ecosystem, providing invaluable insights from across market landscapes with regard to delivery and holding markets accountable for ongoing performance. These efforts rest on the pillars of rich, living repositories of comprehensive research, white papers and opinion pieces and, a proven history of successful lobbying and intervention on behalf of the membership.  The addition of Experian's voice to the FDATA membership extends the collaborative capability of the combined membership, enhancing the synergy between the members themselves. The unprecedented economic crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has seen a surge of innovative responses from the Fintech community throughout the global ecosystem. FDATA is uniquely placed to facilitate these conversations between industry, governments, and regulators, encouraging the potential of products and services to yield the best possible outcomes for SMEs and populations as a whole."   

At Experian, we’re dedicated to innovation and the COVID-19 pandemic has been an impetus for further innovation. Our driving force of successful innovation is our employees. We foster a culture of continuous innovation, from the way we work to the solutions we create.   Global Hackathon  As part of our effort to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, we’re launching Experian’s first-ever Global Hackathon. Taking place between June 1 and 5, we’ve invited all our employees to get involved and connect, share knowledge and find new ways to help our clients and consumers on the road to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.    Mitigating COVID-19 Crisis Through Our Innovations  In addition to the Global Hackathon, we’ve committed vast resources to develop innovative technologies and new sources of data and analytics to drive solutions that help people, businesses and society at large.   For example, to aid in the United States re-opening efforts, Experian has made available a free interactive U.S. map showing populations at-risk of being most susceptible to developing severe cases of COVID-19. The Experian COVID-19 Outlook and Response Evaluator (CORE) tool is intended to help guide healthcare organizations and government agencies as they plan for COVID-19 recovery in the months ahead. The map leverages de-identified data such as pre-existing conditions and social determinants of health to form a comprehensive picture that predicts possible pandemic impact on communities.   To help essential organizations during the pandemic, Experian also created At-Risk Audiences, which leverage our data assets to identify groups of individuals that are most likely to be impacted. These new privacy-compliant segments, offered free of charge, are designed to help these organizations find and communicate with at-risk populations, enabling them to deliver essential services as quickly as possible.  In the UK, we’re working side-by-side with the government. As part of this, we’re building models to help predict how this disease will spread in local populations and predict the effectiveness of various treatment therapies.      In Brazil, we’ve organized a coalition of universities, data companies and technology leaders to launch  Covid Radar with the purpose of working together to minimize the impacts generated by the COVID-19 pandemic and contribute to the recovery of Brazil’s economy. The Covid Radar integrates companies to the hospitals and communities that need donations of ventilators, personal protection equipment, or other supplies.  In addition to providing case monitoring and disease forecasting.   The COVID-19 crisis has forced innovation and change on a scale and pace we wouldn’t normally see. We remain relentlessly focused on helping vulnerable communities, strengthening the resilience of businesses, and playing an important role in helping consumers and the world economy get back to strength. As part of our global innovation program, we’re hosting a global hackathon to help our employees create new ways to help our clients and consumers on the road to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.  As one of the world’s most innovative companies, we’re doing everything at Experian we can to provide our unique insights back to key stakeholders so they can prioritize help those who need it most urgently.     

Small businesses are the backbone of our nation’s economy, generating 44% of the nation’s overall revenue. When they take a hit, we all feel it. But as good neighbors – and frequent patrons – we can find a path toward keeping these small businesses on their feet and reopening their doors as soon as possible.    At Experian, our obligation is to fight for small businesses that have been impacted by COVID-19. Main Street America reported in April that “COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on small businesses’ revenue…Approximately 35.7 million Americans employed by small businesses are at risk of unemployment as result of the COVID-19 crisis.”   That is why we moved quickly to support the signing of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), providing relief to Americans through expanded unemployment coverage and by distributing grants and loans to small businesses.   Acknowledging the unprecedented financial difficulties many are facing, lenders have established relief options for customers unable to make scheduled payments. In an effort to safeguard consumers against potential delinquency and protect credit, the CARES Act calls for creditors to adjust reporting systems for those taking advantage of these relief options.   Simply put, your small business’s credit score shouldn’t be your biggest concern these days, and the CARES Act works to ensure that.    We know there’s more work to be done to help small businesses navigate these challenging times. We’ve outlined the following steps to keep your business’s credit on track during the pandemic, taking advantage of resources and services we recently launched:  Call Your Lender: If a customer or small business is unable to pay a bill, the most critical action they can take is to call their lender and inquire about available assistance programs. If consumers are able to get an accommodation, they can stop a missed payment from negatively impacting their credit.  Business Resources Website: Experian has launched a website to help businesses prepare to manage increased attacks, push toward digital banking and understand regulatory changes as businesses find their footing in this evolving financial services landscape.     Credit Report Access for All: Experian is offering all consumers access to a free credit report, FICO score and credit monitoring through our CreditWorks product, which also provides access to Experian Boost, a financial tool that has helped more than 2 million consumers increase their credit score to date. This is in addition to the free weekly credit score we are offering in coordination with our peers through annualcrediteport.com.   COVID-19 U.S. Business Risk Index: Experian has launched a new service to help lenders and government organizations understand how to make lending options available to the business segments that need it most. This, in turn, directly helps small businesses gain access to capital they need. The public tool includes a risk simulator broken down by state to keep business owners updated on how COVID-19 is affecting specific industries in a particular region.  As a nation, we have learned many lessons from the 2008 financial crisis. One vital lesson that sticks with us at Experian is that we’re better at tackling challenges as a collective financial industry, with transparency and a lending hand. At Experian, we’re committed to helping small businesses land back on their feet, and we’ll be there when the backbone of our economy needs additional support down the road.   

To combat a growing threat that’s expected to drive $48 billion in annual online payment fraud losses by 20231,  Experian®  has announced the launch of Sure Profile™. Experian is the first company with an offering to combat synthetic identity fraud that is integrated into the credit profile with market-leading assurance. We are proud to be the first in our industry to actually put “skin-in-the-game” by sharing in fraud losses with our clients if the losses occur on assured profiles.  Experian’s new offering validates consumer identities, detects profiles that have an increased risk for synthetic identity fraud and helps cover losses resulting from synthetic identity fraud for assured profiles.   Leveraging the capabilities of the Experian Ascend Identity Platform™, Sure Profile utilizes Experian’s industry-leading data assets and data quality to drive advanced analytics that set a higher level of protection for lenders. Powered by newly developed machine learning and AI models, Sure Profile offers lenders a streamlined approach to define and detect synthetic identities early in the originations process.   Experian’s Sure Profile differentiates between real people and potentially risky applicants, so lenders can confidently increase application approvals with less risk.    We expect to authenticate most credit applications through Sure Profile. In the cases where the identity can’t be assured, the company will deliver additional fraud risk indicators, so that lenders can take the right next steps to verify the potential borrower’s identity and prevent fraud.  To date, detecting synthetic identities has been a significant challenge for lenders because there’s not an industry standard or a single definition that can be used to establish the legitimacy of an identity. In addition, understanding the financial impact of synthetics has been difficult for lenders as losses tied to synthetic identity fraud are typically categorized as defaults or “bad debt.” With Sure Profile, we are reinforcing our position as a leader by creating a standard set of criteria to define a synthetic identity.   Experian has always been a leader in combatting fraud, and with Sure Profile, we’re proud to deliver an industry-first fraud offering integrated into the credit profile that mitigates lender losses while protecting millions of consumers’ identities. Our investments in innovation, AI and machine learning and our data quality are enabling us to lead the way in identity protection and help protect consumers and lenders alike. 

We are delighted to have announced our proposed acquisition of a 60% stake in Arvato Financial Solutions Risk Management division.   Bringing together Experian’s global data expertise with AFS Risk Management’s market and sector experience will create a uniquely innovative organisation that can offer the best of both companies to the Germany, Austria & Switzerland (DACH) region.   For us in Experian EMEA this is an incredibly exciting moment. Germany is Europe’s economic powerhouse and there is a huge opportunity to bring our Decisioning and Analytics expertise and products like Ascend Analytics on Demand to benefit existing and new clients of both organisations. Not only that, we have the privilege to work with a well-respected, established organisation like AFS Risk Management, with its deep focus on customer service, high-quality products, and solutions tailored for key industries like e-commerce, telecoms and insurance; and with the Bertelsman Group, one of Europe’s leading media groups.   Following completion, our intention is to make a new, joint entity, made up of the best of Experian and AFS Risk Management, delivering broad coverage and a strong product and innovation roadmap across the DACH region. Clients of both organisations will quickly be able to benefit from the strengths each partner brings – as we deliver the best new technologies into the region, enabling them to make better, faster decisions, and ultimately delivering greater access to finance for people across the region.     The acquisition now enters the EU’s standard competition review process. 

Today kicks off Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. The Experian Asian American Employee Resource Group (ERG) is proud to recognize this special month by sharing how Experian is supporting a national campaign to address the adversity facing some of our most at-risk communities right now. Experian has joined ten non-profits and more than 80 companies from across industries and sectors nationally to support the #AscendTogether action agenda. It includes promoting inclusion, raising awareness of vulnerable groups, denouncing bias, supporting frontline healthcare workers, COVID-19 victims and families, and donating funds and resources to support vulnerable populations and impacted businesses. Led by Pan-Asian leadership nonprofit Ascend, this effort is designed to bring about unity at a time when fear about COVID-19 has led to rise of intolerance and racist acts, particularly against the Asian and Asian-American community. Experian is proud to step up as a leader in our industry to participate in this effort. As executive co-sponsors of Experian’s Asian American ERG, we hope you will join us in our efforts to be a champion for diverse communities, especially during this time. You can learn more about #AscendTogether here. Written by: Dacy Yee, Chief Customer Officer ECS Direct-to-Consumer and Jimmy Cheung, Senior Vice President of Technology and Engineering

With the impact of COVID-19, we’re certainly in uncharted territory. Many people are struggling with high unemployment, which is resulting in missed credit card, utility, and rent payments. In response, Experian is joining forces with the other U.S. credit reporting agencies, to offer free weekly credit reports to all Americans for the next year via AnnualCreditReport.com. A credit report allows people to monitor their finances and better understand their overall financial health. We’re proud our industry is uniting to make this possible for all U.S. consumers starting today. Credit reports are updated constantly, so the ability for an individual to look at their report weekly is helpful to monitor for lender updates and ensure there is no fraudulent or unfamiliar activity. During these difficult times, this is especially important. In addition to the free weekly credit report at AnnualCreditReport.com, Experian also offers consumers free access to their credit report, FICO score, and ongoing credit monitoring at Experian.com. This is a no-charge product.  We want to give consumers multiple options to access and manage their credit report. At Experian, we’re committed to enabling fair and responsible lending through the power of our data. As the consumer’s bureau, our goal is to not only help consumers build credit but to get better access to credit. All of us are working diligently every day to keep our data as accurate, relevant, and secure as possible so that lenders can use the data to responsibly extend credit to people who need it most especially when the economy returns to strength. What You Can Do Now  The most vital action someone can take if they are unable to pay a bill is to talk with their lender and inquire about assistance programs that may be available. If a consumer receives an accommodation it will have minimal impact on their credit score if their account is in good standing and if there hasn’t been previous delinquencies reported We remain committed to informing, guiding, and protecting people during these unprecedented times. Beyond our offer for free credit reports, we’ve created a dedicated website, with links to multiple resources and materials to help the community learn about credit and other important personal finance topics. We encourage everyone to visit the Experian COVID-19 Resources & Credit Education. Take care and stay healthy.