Does knowing where fraud takes place matter? That is the question we asked ahead of compiling data from 2015 to show where billing and shipping fraud attacks occur in the United States. The answer is Yes, it does matter. With more than 13 million fraud victims in 2015,[1] assessing where fraud occurs is an important layer of verification when performing real-time risk assessments for e-commerce. Experian analyzed millions of e-commerce transactions to identify fraud attack rates across the United States for both shipping and billing locations. You can view the map to see the attack rates for all states and download the top 100 ZIP Code rankings as well. Click here for the highlights and the findings.    

Experian Marketing Services, a recognized leader in data-driven marketing, was awarded the top position — in a field of nine email service providers (ESPs) — by The Relevancy Group for product innovation and client satisfaction. In its recently released report, The Relevancy Ring — The ESP Buyer’s Guide 2016, The Relevancy Group evaluated ESP companies according to the satisfaction of current clients and the company’s ability to meet marketers’ challenges and goals. The report cites Experian as the largest ESP and praises the Experian Marketing Suite for its omnichannel marketing capabilities, having the most native functionality of all vendors evaluated. The report states, “Marketers that seek a strategic partner to provide a blend of services, data and technology across complex campaigns should consider Experian Marketing Services.” For the third year in a row, Experian® stood out in terms of client service. The report continues, “Clients named many aspects as the best parts of their relationship with Experian Marketing Services. One liked the responsiveness and commitment of their account management team. Another said the tool was the best, and another cited data capabilities and execution. The one thing all clients mentioned they loved about Experian Marketing Services is the partnership they shared.” Included in the report are The Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction Awards, representing client feedback related to vendor excellence across myriad categories. Experian Marketing Services received multiple awards in the categories of Value, Usability, Campaign Execution, Account Management, Production Services, Omnichannel Marketing and Integration Capabilities. “We’re thrilled with this top ranking and believe it’s a testament to the strength of our client partnerships and the talent of our people,” said Ashley Johnston, senior vice president, global marketing, Experian Marketing Services. “This recognition also highlights the breadth and first-rate capabilities of the Experian Marketing Suite and the unique benefits we provide to leading brands around the world.” The Experian Marketing Suite is a cloud-based marketing platform that brings together Experian’s customer recognition and linkage technology, consumer database, analytics and interactions-management technology. The platform also recently received top honors in five categories for the 2015 Email Marketing Awards presented by The Marketer Quarterly, as well as recognition by a leading industry firms for Digital Marketing Hubs. For more information, download a complimentary copy of The Relevancy Ring — The ESP Buyer’s Guide 2016.

This Forbes business story about how the Experian DataLabs was established illustrates the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit that is alive and well at Experian today. “We wanted to create a sandbox for experimenting with data, but the cost was prohibitive for our business unit,” said Eric Haller, Executive Vice President, Experian DataLabs. “So we insourced the build within our DataLab and got 40x the processing power for a lower price.” Read the full article here.

TMCnet’s premium technology blog, TechZone360 featured a byline article by Eric Haller, Executive Vice President of Experian DataLabs about the growing demand for data scientists.  According to Haller, because data science is in its infancy, there’s tremendous room for innovation. Experian’s DataLabs works to assemble individuals from a host of backgrounds with a variety of experiences and encourages them to push the envelope of what’s possible. They look at problems and find solutions that are good for businesses, consumers and society.  Read the full article here.

By Eric Haller and Hiq Lee The American economy rises and falls on the successes of the small business community. As a major contributor to job growth, as well as innovation, small businesses have laid the foundation toward our country’s economic success. But as important as small businesses are to financial progress of our economy, some business owners have experienced their own growth challenges along the way. Perhaps the most significant challenge has been the inability to access financial capital. In the years since the economic downturn, conventional lending sources, such as banks and credit unions, have tightened their lending criteria. Many small businesses, especially those with a limited credit history, have had difficulty demonstrating their creditworthiness and are deemed as high risk. Without access to financial capital, small businesses are not able to order new inventory, hire new employees, react to emergencies or expand their businesses. But what if financial institutions did not just leverage traditional credit information to determine a business’s ability to repay a loan, but also took nontraditional data sources into consideration? For instance, what if banks and credit unions leveraged data on daily sales, accounting information, Web traffic, business valuation or even social media data? The benefits of this scenario could be endless. Not only will many small businesses have a better opportunity to qualify for business loans, but a whole new segment of the small business owner population will be able to obtain financing, namely the new business start-up. With the incorporation of nontraditional data, the small business owner that has one or fewer business accounts has the chance to qualify for a business loan with an affordable rate. In fact, there are a number of online marketplace lenders, or nonbank lenders, that have already begun taking this nontraditional approach. These companies leverage a wealth of data points, such as social media or Web traffic, to help fill the void that a business with limited credit history might have. By combining both traditional and nontraditional data sets, these lenders are able to help small businesses access financial resources, while expanding their own portfolios. For example, consider a beauty salon that has been opened for less than a year, but constantly has customers filling up its chairs and enjoys sufficient cash flow. If we look at its credit history, there may be two small tradelines with positive payment behavior. However, despite the positive performance, its business credit score is relatively low. Under normal circumstances, the salon would have trouble securing a business loan. But, if its social media presence were taken into consideration, the salon could be viewed as the burgeoning business that it is. Combine the hundreds of positive reviews and social media references with its strong cash flow; it could signal that the salon is a growing business with potentially low risk of defaulting on an approved loan. Clearly, without the benefit of this added information, this small business would not be able to access the financial resources to expand. The insights that can be uncovered by utilizing nontraditional data sources can open new doors for small businesses. Additionally, given the opportunity, small businesses can take our economy to new heights, which is good for local communities, our country and society as a whole. *** Eric Haller is the executive vice president of Experian’s DataLabs and Hiq is the president of Experian’s Business Information Services.

In this article from Inc., Eric Haller, executive vice president of Experian DataLabs, discusses the data scientist role and why it is so important that many startups will likely need to hire one in 2016.

This Bloomberg Business Radio interview with Eric Haller, executive vice president of Experian DataLabs, covers Experian’s innovative approach to using big data and social media to help small businesses with credit verification. "The strongest value is for businesses that have not established credit in the past," said Haller. "This is significant because one-third of all inquiries for commercial [lending] are businesses [without] established credit."

In this article written for IT Business Net by Eric Haller, Executive Vice President of Experian’s DataLabs, he discusses how innovations at Experian DataLabs are using breakthrough experiments to do good things with data. According to Haller, Our world is filled with endless amounts of data. From credit card transactions to healthcare records to social media content, we are constantly surrounded by information that is vitally important to both ourselves and corporations around the world. While many companies are in the business of mining data for insights using time-tested algorithms and mathematical equations, few invest the resources to find new breakthrough data insights. This is understandable in many respects, innovation is hard – and not guaranteed to produce results, but it is exactly what we do in Experian DataLabs.

This Q&A interview that appeared on Monster.com with Dr. Shanji Xiong, Experian DataLab’s global chief scientist, discusses his career and provides advice for data scientist hopefuls. In this article, he talks about getting to use data for good to impact business and people’s lives. According to Xiong, being a data scientist is fun because data is alive. It talks to you and is always trying to tell you something about what is going on out there. View the full article here.