Experian

Experian plc
Public limited company
Traded as LSE: EXPN
FTSE 100 Component
Industry Business services
Founded 1996 (1996)
Headquarters

Dublin, Republic of Ireland (incorporated)
Nottingham, United Kingdom (UK Headquarters)[1][2]

Costa Mesa, California, United States
Key people
 Don Robert, Chairman
Brian Cassin (CEO)
Revenue US$4.335 billion (2017)[3]
US$1.075 billion (2017)[3]
US$0.865 billion (2017)[3]
Number of employees
 15,587 (2017)[3]
Website www.experianplc.com

Experian plc is a consumer credit reporting agency. Experian collects and aggregates information on over one billion people and businesses including 235 million individual US consumers and more than 25 million US businesses.[4][5] Based in Dublin, Ireland, the company operates in 37 countries with headquarters in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Brazil. The company employs approximately 17,000 people and reported revenue for 2018 of US $4.6 billion.[6] It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Experian is a partner in the UK government's Verify ID system and USPS Address Validation. It is one of the "Big Three" credit-reporting agencies, alongside TransUnion and Equifax.[7]

In addition to its credit services, Experian also sells decision analytic and marketing assistance to businesses, including individual fingerprinting and targeting.[8] Its consumer services include online access to credit history and products meant to protect from fraud and identity theft.[9] Like all credit reporting agencies, the company is required by US law to provide consumers with one free credit report every year.[10]

History

The company was established in the United States as TRW Information Systems and Services Inc., a subsidiary of TRW Inc., when it acquired Credit Data in 1968.[11] In November 1996, TRW sold the unit, as Experian, to two Boston private equity firms: Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners. Just one month later, the two firms sold Experian to The Great Universal Stores Limited, a retail conglomerate with millions of customers paying for goods on credit based in Manchester, England (later renamed GUS).[12]

The Great Universal Stores Limited, had employed John Peace, a computer programmer, to combine the mail order data from various of its subsidiaries and businesses to create a central database to which was later added electoral roll data as well as county court judgements.[13] GUS's database was commercialised in 1980 under the name Commercial Credit Nottingham (CCN). So when The Great Universal Stores Limited acquired Experian in 1996,[14] Experian was merged into CCN.[15]

During the next ten years, Experian broadened its product range to new industry sectors, beyond financial services, and entered new markets such as Latin America, Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe. The business expanded through both organic development and acquisitions.[15] In October 2006 Experian was demerged from the British company GUS and listed on the London Stock Exchange.[16]

In August 2005, Experian accepted a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over charges that Experian had violated a previous settlement with the FTC. The FTC's allegations concerned customers who signed up for the "free credit report" at Experian's Consumerinfo.com site. The FTC alleged that ads for the "free credit report" did not adequately disclose that Experian would automatically enroll customers in Experian's $79.95 credit-monitoring program.[17][18]

In January 2008, Experian announced that it would cut more than 200 jobs at its Nottingham office as it moved development work to India to reduce costs.[19]

Experian shut down its Canadian operations on 14 April 2009.[20]

In March 2017, Experian agreed to pay a $3 million fine related to giving credit scores to consumers that were not their true credit score. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was the United States federal agency who imposed the fine.[21]

In May 2018, Experian and Mitek formed a partnership to add identity document verification and biometric facial matching to its digital identity verification software. Experian’s CrossCore fraud prevention and identity platform will feature Mitek’s Mobile Verify and Mobile Fill solutions to deliver seamless new account opening and help businesses achieve compliance and mitigate fraud exposure, according to the announcement.[22]

Notable acquisitions

The acquisition in 2002 of ConsumerInfo.com enabled Experian to start supplying credit reports to consumers, enabling consumers to monitor their credit status.[23]

In 2004 Experian acquired CheetahMail, a business founded in 1998 that provided e-mail marketing software and services.[24] In the same year Experian also acquired Experian Data Quality (formerly QAS Ltd.), a supplier of contact data management and identity verification solutions.[25]

In 2005, Experian acquired PriceGrabber for $485 million.[26] Also in 2005, Experian acquired FootFall, an information provider to the retail and retail property industries:[27] Experian FootFall. Still in 2005, Experian acquired LowerMyBills.com for US$330 million.[28]

In September 2006, Experian announced its purchase of Northern Credit Bureaus, located in Quebec, Canada.[29]

In June 2007, Experian acquired an initial 65% stake in Serasa, the market leading credit bureau in Brazil and now the largest credit bureau in the world. The purchase price for the initial stake was $1.2bn. This was the first acquisition for Experian in Latin America.[30]

In mid-2007, Experian acquired a number of software companies with products that filled gaps in their existing portfolio. The intention was to be able to offer Experian's customers an Experian-branded product for all phases of the customer lifecycle. These included:

  • Emailing Solution, a French e-mail marketing company. The intention was to grow the existing CheetahMail business with the acquisition of this new client portfolio.[31]
  • Hitwise, an internet monitor that collects data directly from information service provider networks.[32]
  • Tallyman[33] debt collection management software from Bristol-based Talgentra.[34]

Experian purchased the company RentBureau in June 2010, which houses rental payment histories on over 7 million US residents; this data was included in Experian US consumer credit reports as of January 2011.[35] In March 2012, RentalBureau launched in the UK. By including rental payment data in credit reports, several million people living in private rented accommodation will have the ability to access more and lower cost credit deals.[36]

In August 2010, Experian became the first CICRA licensed credit bureau to go live in India. Since then the company has provided Experian credit reports to lenders and consumers in compliance with the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) guidelines.[37]

Experian purchased a majority stake in Techlightenment on 17 January 2011, as part of Experian's strategy to grow its digital marketing capabilities. Techlightenment is a data driven technology and marketing company based in the UK, which helps clients to leverage advertising through key social media platforms. Techlightenment will form part of the UK Experian Marketing Services Division.[38]

In May 2011, Experian acquired a 98% holding in Computec S.A., a credit services information provider based in Colombia, for the equivalent of US$380m.[39]

In June 2011, Experian acquired Medical Present Value, Inc. (MPV), a provider of data, analytics and software in the US healthcare payments market. Its products are used by healthcare providers to manage payments between patients, commercial payers (such as insurance companies) and government programmes.[40]

In July 2011, Experian acquired Virid Interatividade Digital Ltda ("Virid"), an email marketing company offering email delivery, email based behavioural segmentation, real-time campaign reporting, mobile delivery and social media integration in Brazil.[41]

In December 2011, Experian acquired Garlik Ltd, a provider of web monitoring services in the UK. Garlik helps consumers to protect themselves from the risks of identity theft and financial fraud.[42]

In May 2012, Experian announced it had signed an agreement to sell PriceGrabber, its price comparison shopping business and North America online lead generation activities, which operate under the brands Classes USA and LowerMyBills to Ybrant Digital Limited, a digital marketing services business based in Hyderabad, India.[43] However, since then, Experian has announced that Ybrant Digital has failed to comply with its obligation to close the transaction and Experian considers Ybrant Digital to be in breach of contract.[44]

In February 2013 Experian launched its consumer credit bureau in Australia. Experian will provide consumer credit reports to utility, financial and telecommunication companies. This launch follows the passing of the Privacy Amendment Bill in November 2012, which will mean a step change for lenders, who will now be able to take positive (in addition) to negative credit history into account when making lending decisions.[45]

In October 2013 Experian bought 41st Parameter, a fraud-prevention vendor, increasing its presence in the fraud prevention market and extending its presence into web fraud transaction protection.[46] Then in November 2013 Experian bought Passport Health Communications, a data and software provider, enabling it to offer clients in the US healthcare industry a one-stop-shop to manage risk and to satisfy their payments requirements.[47]

In October 2017 Experian in North America acquired Clarity Services, a leading credit bureau servicing the sub-prime market. That means acquisition of unique credit data and insights into over 60m individuals. New Clarity Services products were added to the traditional bureau with the introduction of the first new product which will combine data from both Clarity and Experian to enhance credit risk decisions.

In March 2018 Experian launched the new identity protection proposition in the US and substantially developed the credit comparison services and agreed the acquisition of ClearScore (6mln users, mainly younger, digitally savvy consumers), which will add a complementary credit comparison brand in the UK.

Operations

In the United States, like the other major credit reporting bureaus, Experian is chiefly regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, signed into law in 2003, amended the FCRA to require the credit reporting companies to provide consumers with one free copy of their credit report per 12-month period. Like its main competitors, TransUnion and Equifax, Experian markets credit reports directly to consumers. Experian heavily markets its for-profit credit reporting service, FreeCreditReport.com, and all three agencies have been criticised and even sued for selling credit reports that can be obtained at no cost.[48][49]

Its market segmentation tool, Mosaic, is used by political parties to identify groups of voters. In the British version there are 15 main groups, broken down into 89 hyperspecific categories, from "corporate chieftains" to "golden empty-nesters" which can be taken down to the level of individual postcodes. It was first used by the Labour Party, but then taken up by the Conservatives in the 2015 General Election campaign.[50]

Corporate responsibility

In July 2012 Experian launched a free online teaching resource called "Values, Money and Me", designed to help primary school pupils explore both practical and emotional issues around managing money. The tool aims to give young children a head start in life by helping develop their financial knowledge and abilities, as well as their attitudes and values towards money. Values, Money and Me has been awarded a Quality Mark by Personal Finance Education Group, a UK financial education charity.[51]

Sales to identity thieves

In 2013 a Vietnamese national, Hieu Minh Ngo,[52] was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with attempting to sell personally identifiable information on hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents. This information had been purchased from Experian subsidiary and data aggregator Court Ventures. Ngo then resold the information through the identity fraud enabling websites Superget.info and Findget.me.[53][54][55][56][57] The information offered for anonymous sale on these websites included individual's name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, place of work, duration of work, state driver's licence number, mother's maiden name, bank account number(s), bank routing number(s), email account(s) and other account passwords.[57]

2015 data breach

Letter from Experian North America CEO, Craig Boundy, informing T‑Mobile customer their personal information was compromised in Experian server hack.

On 1 October 2015 Experian announced that they had discovered a breach existing between 1 September 2013 and 16 September 2015. As many as 15 million people who used the company’s services, among them customers of American cellular company T-Mobile who had applied for Experian credit checks, may have had their private information exposed.[58][59]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Feisst, Melanie (2006-07-27). "Ireland has the edge, says expansive GUS". Retrieved 2016-07-25.
  2. ↑ "About Experian | Company Profile | Office Locations|". Retrieved 2016-07-25.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Annual Report 2017" (PDF). Experian. 4 March 2018.
  4. ↑ "Credit Services". Experian plc. Retrieved 2017-09-23.
  5. ↑ "About Experian | Company Profile | Corporate Fact Sheet". www.experian.com. Retrieved 2017-09-23.
  6. ↑ "Credit Report Company Information at Experian.com". www.experian.com. Retrieved 2017-09-23.
  7. ↑ "How to protect yourself against the theft of your identity". The Economist. 14 September 2017. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  8. ↑ Ingram, David. "Facebook cuts ties to data brokers in blow to targeted ads". U.K. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
  9. ↑ "Experian's Four Principal Business Groups". www.experian.com. Retrieved 2017-09-23.
  10. ↑ "Free Credit Reports". Consumer Information. 2013-03-26. Retrieved 2017-09-23.
  11. ↑ "A Brief History of Experian" (PDF). Experian. p. 7. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  12. ↑ "GUS shares soar on pounds 1bn acquisition". The Independent. 15 November 1996. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  13. ↑ "John Wilfred Peace". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
  14. ↑ "Large British Retailer to buy US credit data company". New York Times. 15 November 1996. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
  15. 1 2 "Experian history". Experianplc.com.
  16. ↑ "London Stock Exchange company profile". London Stock Exchange. Retrieved 17 July 2009.
  17. ↑ "Consumerinfo.com Settles FTC Charges". Federal Trade Commission. Archived from the original on 6 June 2010. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
  18. ↑ Quotation marks around "free credit report" are part of FTC press release
  19. ↑ Experian to cut 200 jobs Computer Weekly. Retrieved 3 March 2008.
  20. ↑ Experian Canada. Retrieved on 25 March 2009
  21. ↑ Koren, James Rufus (2017-03-23). "Credit bureau Experian fined $3 million over misleading credit scores". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2017-03-24.
  22. ↑ "Mitek and Experian partner to add ID document and facial verification to CrossCore". BiometricUpdate. 2018-05-31. Retrieved 2018-09-25.
  23. ↑ Chief Marketer (19 March 2002). "Experian buys Consumerinfo.com". Penton media. Archived from the original on 19 January 2013.
  24. ↑ Mickey Alam Khan (4 March 2004). "Experian buys CheetahMail". Dmnews.com. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
  25. ↑ Jules Grant,, brandrepublic.com, 6 October 2004, 07:00 am (6 October 2004). "Experian buys address software firm QAS for £106m". Brand Republic. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
  26. ↑ "Forbes". Forbes. 14 December 2005. Archived from the original on 3 May 2007. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
  27. ↑ FootFall acquisition press release Archived 5 April 2008 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on 24 May 2008
  28. ↑ "GUS' Experian buys LowerMyBills.com for initial 330 mln usd UPDATE". Forbes. 5 May 2005. Archived from the original on 9 July 2011.
  29. ↑ "Experian expands operations in Canada". Qas-experian.com.au. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
  30. ↑ "Experian to buy 65 pct stake in Brazil's Seresa". Reuters. 26 June 2007. Retrieved 24 March 2012.
  31. ↑ Dianna Dilworth (3 May 2007). "Experian buys France's Emailing Solution". Direct Marketing News.
  32. ↑ Hitwise acquisition press release Archived 16 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine.. Retrieved on 1 March 2008.
  33. ↑ "Tallyman". Experian Decision Analytics.
  34. ↑ Experian Acquires Tallyman Collections Software. Retrieved on 23 January 2009
  35. ↑ "Experian US – Rent Data Now in Credit Reports". Creditgeeks.co.uk. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
  36. ↑ Bachelor, Lisa (15 March 2012). "Experian to include rental payments in credit files". London: Guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
  37. ↑ "Global credit agency Experian opens doors in India". Money Control. 12 August 2010. Retrieved 24 March 2012.
  38. ↑ "Experian plc – Acquisition of stake in Techlightenment". Uk.finance.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
  39. ↑ Kar-Gupta, Sudip (3 May 2011). "Experian to buy majority of Colombia's Computec". Reuters. Retrieved 24 March 2011.
  40. ↑ "Experian acquires medical software firm for $185M". Associated Press. 28 June 2011. Retrieved 24 March 2011.
  41. ↑ "Experian plc Announces Acquisition of Virid Interatividade Digital Ltd". Reuters. 25 July 2011.
  42. ↑ "Experian Buys Garlik". Mr Web. 23 December 2011.
  43. ↑ "Experian makes a loss in offloading PriceGrabber to Indians". London: The Independent. 11 May 2012.
  44. ↑ "Experian's PriceGrabber sale falls through". FT.com. 26 September 2012.
  45. ↑ "Experian Credit Reports to Launch in Australia". Creditgeeks.co.uk. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  46. ↑ "41st Parameter for $324M, Gets AdTruth In The Bargain". Ad exchanger. 1 October 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  47. ↑ "Experian expands healthcare reach as it buys up Passport Health Communications". City AM. 6 November 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  48. ↑ Sullivan, Bob (10 May 2005). "Many free credit reports still aren't free". MSNBC. Retrieved 29 October 2006.
  49. ↑ "Experian, Consumerinfo.com Named in Class Action Suit". ConsumerAffairs.com. Archived from the original on 2 November 2006. Retrieved 29 October 2006.
  50. ↑ "Tories identify eight groups of voters as Labour look to Obama campaign for inspiration: The sophisticated tools that rivals hope will win them 2015 election revealed". Independent. 6 November 2013. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
  51. ↑ "Values Money and Me". pfeg. June 2012.
  52. ↑ "Vietnamese National Charged in Widespread International Scheme to Steal and Sell Hundreds of Thousands of U.s. Persons' Personally Identifiable Information". Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  53. ↑ Schwartz, Mathew (21 October 2013). "Experian Sold Data To Vietnamese ID Theft Ring". InformationWeek. UBM Tech. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  54. ↑ Seltzer, Larry (21 October 2013). "Experian caught up in ID theft investigation". ZDNet. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  55. ↑ Masnick, Mike (21 October 2013). "How Experian Sold Consumer Data To Popular ID Theft Service". Techdirt. Floor64, Inc. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  56. ↑ Doctorow, Cory (21 October 2013). "Experian sold consumer data to identity thieves' service". Boing Boing. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  57. 1 2 Krebs, Brian (20 October 2013). "Experian Sold Consumer Data to ID Theft Service". krebsonsecurity.com. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  58. ↑ York, Sam Thielman in New. "Experian hack exposes 15 million people's personal information". the Guardian. Retrieved 2015-10-26.
  59. ↑ "Experian Breach Affects 15 Million Consumers — Krebs on Security". krebsonsecurity.com. Retrieved 2017-09-23.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.