The labor market remains robust with low unemployment (3.8%) and 366K new jobs created in September. Job openings in the U.S. were 9.6MM as of the end of August, an increase of 690K or 5.8% since July. Retail sales in August had a month-over month increase for the fifth consecutive month. As we head into the holiday shopping season, despite headlines of large retailers struggling, the retail industry appears poised for success. It is likely that those retail businesses that survived the difficulties of the pandemic are the most financially sound and are driving the statistics. Over the past year, retailers are seeking less credit and taking on less debt than the previous few years. Despite inflation, consumers are still spending, and retailers are benefitting. Commercial delinquencies have been increasing over the past year. Delinquencies within the retail sector were trending above overall commercial delinquencies until just a few months ago when retailers exhibited lower rates than overall. These are all positive signs heading into the holiday shopping season which tends to make or break a retailer’s year. The September labor report was stronger than expected. Unemployment remained low at 3.8% and 366K new jobs were created which was the highest amount since January. In addition, the jobs created in July and August were revised upward significantly. What I am watching: With the labor market still tight, it will be interesting to see if the retail sector will be able to staff accordingly to support the holiday crunch. If staffing is difficult, retail stores may struggle to keep up with demand. Now that the student loan moratorium has ended, it will be important to monitor the impact to consumer spend. The increased expense of the student loan monthly payments will likely leave individuals with less discretionary income to spend on retail purchases. In addition, business owners who have student loans will have less money to invest in their business

In an era marked by rising interest rates, global supply chain disruptions, and transformative labor market shifts, B2B organizations are grappling with significant challenges to their commercial credit portfolios. Join us for a portfolio management webinar: WEBINAR DETAILS Get Ahead of Economic Aftershocks: Holistic Portfolio Management Principles Date: Thursday, October 12th, 2023 Time: 10:00 a.m. (Pacific) | 1:00 p.m. (Eastern) During this session, participants will learn how to: Better Anticipate the Economic Impact on Your Portfolio: Dive into proactive portfolio analysis techniques to stay ahead of economic uncertainties. Learn how to interpret subtle credit score changes and trends to preemptively address potential risks and adjust your strategies accordingly. Understand the Roadblocks to Automation: While automation is the gateway to efficiency and agility, many businesses face barriers in its adoption. We'll explore common challenges in transitioning from manual to automated processes, offering insights to help you leverage automation for improved decision-making. Fine-tune Your Collection Recovery Approach: Some accounts are inevitably bound to become liabilities. Discover how to optimize your collection and recovery strategy, using collection scores to assess recovery likelihood and tools like skip tracing for effective resource allocation. Why Attend? Gain a holistic understanding of the challenges and solutions in commercial credit risk. Equip your organization with actionable insights to enhance efficiency and resilience. Learn best practices from Experian experts relevant to real-world challenges. Don't miss this opportunity to elevate your B2B organization's credit risk management approach. Register now and steer your portfolio confidently through today's dynamic economic landscape. Save My Seat

The travel and leisure sector was one of the hardest hit industries during the pandemic. Now that most worldwide travel restrictions have been lifted, the industry is rebounding. It appears that travel businesses relied on more commercial credit to weather the storm of the pandemic and raised prices to help recover. While commercial credit delinquencies were higher during the pandemic, they have now eased across most of the travel industries indicating that maybe the worst is over for this sector. The August inflation report was generally positive news but did indicate some mixed results. Inflation (CPI) increased for the second consecutive month to 3.7% in August but core inflation, excluding food and energy, decreased in July to 4.3%, the lowest since September 2021. Annual producer price inflation (supplier prices) increased to 1.6% in August, up from in 0.8% July and is the highest sinceApril 2023. Although CPI is still above the Fed’s 2% target, they paused rate hikes at their September 20th meeting. However, they indicated that they may continueto raise rate at one of the remaining two meetings later this year. What I am watching: There are several high-profile news stories that could have an impact on the economy: If Congress does not pass a bill to fund the government by September 30, a government shutdown may lead to negative economic impacts. If the auto worker strike continues for a long time and auto production is diminished, some experts estimate that it will be a significant impact to the economy. The moratorium on student loan payments is set to expire on OctoberAs individuals begin paying their monthly loan payment, they will have less disposable income to spend on other things that fuel economic growth

The world of business is always percolating with new opportunities, especially with the recent surge in small business ventures. But with these fresh beans come some not-so-sweet flavors: the bitter taste of B2B fraud. It's time we ground out the details and brewed some solutions. ☕ Join us Thursday, September 28th at 10am for 15 delicious minutes. Mitigating Fraud in B2B Companies Date: Thursday, September 28th, 20233Time: 10:00 a.m. (Pacific) 1:00 p.m. (Eastern) Don't be latte to the game! Join us for a piping hot 15-minute Sip and Solve session where our very own Bonnie Gerrity will whisk you through the murky world of mitigating fraud for B2B accounts. This is not your regular espresso shot; it's a rich blend of data, industry trends and robust strategies. What’s Brewing? Operational Challenges and Unexplained LossesEvery business has its grinds. We'll discuss how to filter out common operational challenges leading to unexplained losses in B2B companies. Learn how to brew a smoother operational strategy. A Taste of Different Fraud TypesThere's a whole menu of fraud types affecting the B2B market. From the Americano-sized scams to the full Venti deceptions, we'll sip through each one. Layering Predictive ToolsA latte has layers, and so should your fraud prevention strategy. Discover how to layer highly predictive tools to ensure that service to your B2B accounts is as smooth and froth-free as your favorite coffee. Closing Sip: Experian's Blend for SuccessJust as every coffee lover has their preferred blend, Experian offers tailored commercial solutions to mitigate B2B fraud. Just like a well-brewed cup of coffee is essential to kick-start your day, a strong understanding and strategy against B2B fraud is vital for your business. Don't let fraud leave a bitter taste. Get equipped, stay informed, and ensure your business runs on the right kind of beans. Join our Sip and Solve session and let's roast fraud out of B2B. ☕🔍 Watch Recording

Small businesses have been opening at record rates during and following the pandemic. With so many new businesses seeking capital, and not all of them borrowing with good intentions, Experian thought it would be a good time to talk about mitigating fraud with one of the leading FinTech lenders. Ryan Rosett is the Founder and Co-CEO of Credibly, and he shares several valuable insights with us in this Business Chat. Watch Our Business Chat Interview What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our interview. Gary Stockton: Hello, and thanks for joining us for this business chat. I'm Gary Stockton from Experian Business Information Services, and I'm here with our Vice President, Dominic DiGiuseppe, and also Ryan Rosett, the founder of Credibly, a fintech dedicated to helping medium and small-size businesses grow via funding decisions that are based on the holistic health and potential of a business.And we're here today to discuss fraud as it relates to FinTech in the small business space. Gentlemen, welcome to Business Chat. So Experian has recently released some interesting new statistics on the impact of fraud across several industries, notably that over 39% of recent FinTech inquiries were rated as high risk by our commercial first-party fraud score.And that's a predictive score that can predict the likelihood of first-party payment default and the credit bust-out scenarios that we see. These inquiries are projected to carry 62% of all first-party fraud risk within the population. And if you would like to see more on that analysis, we'll be including a link in the blog post for this business chat.So Dominic, I wanted to get your reaction to this statistic, given our mission to serve small businesses and considering small businesses make up the greater part of our economy and economic output.Dominic DeGuiseppe: Yeah, Gary, thanks for that. First and foremost, I want to give a shout-out to our data sciences and product teams for being able to continue to innovate in this space.But really, when you look at post-pandemic, the amount of businesses that have been created, it's, we were somewhat surprised by the numbers as well. But the amount of businesses that are being created, the mission that we have an experience making sure that we can help provide capital and we can provide funding and get that into the hands of business owners quickly.So if we take a look at some of the trends here, the amount of businesses that are being formed since the pandemic is pretty surprising. We've continued to see that trend. Rise and stabilize a bit, but it's still much higher than pre-pandemic levels. So when you think about businesses that are looking to understand the type of fraud that's being perpetrated or making sure that these types of businesses are actually legitimate as they're looking to make credit decisions and provide these companies with lending or funding decisions, these are the types of tools that have been that the team has been creating. Rapid new business formation during pandemic To make sure that we're assessing and helping folks determine the levels of risk that are associated with these businesses. I know we've talked about this in the past, a few times in different conversations, but can you tell the folks tuning in here a little bit about the Credibly origin story I find it super unique and interesting.Ryan Rosett: Oh, absolutely. So my partner and I started the business in 2010. If you think about 2010, it was a contrarian time to start a business. It was coming out of, the Great Recession of 2008/2009, and they were always talking about this double-dip recession, but it was actually an opportune time to start just because small businesses were really looking for access to credit.And what we are is that we're a cash flow lender. So, we look at the cash flow and make decisions and determinations in a very quick manner to provide working capital at an affordable rate for the customer. So that means, it's important to us that the business can sustain the payments that we're providing, and we can maximize the amount of money working capital that we can give them.So it's just something that we're focused on, and we've had the wind in our back for a, I would say, eight years. And then there's something called the pandemic hit, which was like, which, I didn't sleep for, I don't know, four months. But it was a period of time that was really like an interesting time for a small business lender, but then recognizing also that the government money really boosted up the small businesses, and it worked well for alternative lenders like ourselves.Gary Stockton: The pandemic did accelerate rapid digitization, and it does seem like an opportunity for FinTechs to address lending for small businesses digitally. This stat that we were talking about, it's really quite astounding that there were that number of businesses that sprung up during the pandemic.It makes a lot of sense, though, when you consider there were quite a lot of people that were transitioning from maybe a different industry into another industry, home businesses springing up. But with so many new businesses coming online and the impact of cybercrime on small businesses, Dominic, how do lenders know whether or not they are dealing with a real business when they onboard new customers digitally?Dominic DeGuiseppe: Yeah, I think that's certainly a challenge. And I think one of the things that we're looking to answer is, really, three things — is the business real? Is the business active? And is the applicant that's applying for the loan or the type of funding are they actually linked to the business?I think we can certainly answer for that, but I think, since we've got one of the top FinTechs in the space out there, Ryan what is Credibly doing to understand different fraud trends and combat what's happening within the space with fraud?Ryan Rosett: What I can say is that fraud is pervasive right now. And, as we're an online lender, we make decisions in under four hours from app to decision and fund same day. The amount of data alternative data that we're pulling in to make decisions is really quick. And so the risk that there's a fraud application coming through is something that we that you know, I'd say that's largely what we work on.I would say the three largest fraud patterns that we're seeing and you addressed earlier, was an application mismatch. Which is against the verified sources that they listed. And then, we also have just altered documentation associated with the bank statements.And again, that would be something that would be illegal historically, but we're a nonbank lender. And we're just trying to make decisions based on the data that we have. And we want to verify that the applicant is the owner of the business. So those are the types of frauds that we're seeing, I'd say, like a high level and then there are certain things that we do to combat that.So we will call it stipulations to fund. So we may offer to make an offer subject to them supplying additional information. Maybe it's the articles of a corporation. Maybe it's a tax return. And oftentimes, it's not to say whether you're profitable or not profitable, we're looking at who's the owner, who's getting K1s on the tax returns?Those are examples of things that we are looking at. And I know Experian has been an excellent partner of ours in terms of matching and using a number of different data sources that you provide.Dominic DeGuiseppe: How have you seen fraud evolve pre-pandemic to post-pandemic and continue to take shape and take a different shape, from what's been happening as to now?Ryan Rosett: Yeah, that's a good question. So on a pre-pandemic basis today, we're back to the same level of losses. Okay. But the fraud is becoming a little bit more advanced. Okay. Whether it's be it through cyber attacks, whether it's online applications, there's a number of different things that we're working on that we're constantly combating. So it's not it's not something that we put a fix in and then we move away. It's something that we're constantly evaluating, whether it's a submitting partner, or whether we have an affiliate that provides a certain number of lead applications.Those are things that we're constantly measuring to see what the loss rates are, where the fraud is coming from, and then making decisions. So from a pre-pandemic to a post-pandemic, I'd also say that with the PPP, small businesses got a taste of working with alternative lenders through the PPP process, and they became a little bit more comfortable with working with lenders similar to Credibly. So you're seeing like a little bit more comfortability with small businesses having the ability to interface with us and then they're layering in fraud and things of that nature. So it's a constant something we're combating on a daily basis, and it's something that we're thinking about, very often.Dominic DeGuiseppe: Yeah, because when you start to look at it and all the new businesses that are being formed that are coming into the market, working with alternative lenders and FinTech's like yourself, and you guys continuing to shorten the cycle around the app to approval and all the data points that are coming into it. You guys are different than a bank and are able to do those types of things and move quickly. So obviously, with that comes some additional risk; with the FinTech community being tight-knit, how have you been able to benchmark what Credibly is doing against some of the peers that you guys work with in the industry?Ryan Rosett: We have and that's really through public data through asset-backed securitizations; there's reporting relating to the losses that each lender is seeing, of our losses, approximately 10% of our losses we attribute to fraud. The other 90% is, it could be a business that legitimately goes out of business, which happens. So, it's not necessarily fraud. We do benchmark it based on some of our competitors that have asset-backed securitizations and we see the performance in their loss rates and charge costs and things of that nature.Gary Stockton: So, what are you seeing in terms of an amplifying effect on fraud rates with generative AI in the mix and allowing for spoofed content and more access to triangulated private information on business entities?Ryan Rosett: You know, that's a great question. One thing, you're seeing fraudulent IDs. You're seeing IDs that are becoming a little bit more difficult to track and see, because they're creating an identity of someone and they're able to do that through gen AI.So that, that's one aspect. You're also seeing bank statements. We use a number of different bank statements, parsing, and machine learning that looks at these bank statements. It's looking at font type size. There are a number of things when somebody is attributing and oftentimes, sometimes the fraudster is making grave errors also. They're putting data in where data wasn't supposed to be. You're able to detect that really quickly and that's on an automated basis. So that doesn't even touch a human. We see fraud, we kick it out. And, it's declined. So it's a, it's, when we see a, when we fund a fraud application and it's noted as a fraud that we've determined fraud, we then report it we have a, there's a data matching system that we report into so that business owner would never be eligible for. Business financing through an alternative lender. Again,Gary Stockton: Dominic, any closing thoughts?Dominic DeGuiseppe: Yeah, Gary, I would say just in terms of, generally speaking, fraud continues to evolve. There's a number of different things that we're looking at from a business perspective to be able to help our partners. But, Ryan's pointed out a number of those things today, but as FinTechs continue to evolve, fraudsters will continue to evolve and Experian is on our journey to continue to help understand how we can benefit our business partners, making sure that they can combat fraud and keep it out of the business.Gary Stockton: That's great. I think that's a great place to leave today's chat. Dominic, and Ryan, thank you so much for taking time out to share your perspectives on fraud in the commercial space on Business Chat. Thanks for watching, everyone. Related Posts

The future of the economy has proven to be shifting in a way that has made business planning difficult, especially in a time of such strong movement towards digitalizing the customer journey. Firms that provide commercial and business solutions within the US markets have seen their share of challenges related to creating a safety net for fraud as new business creation has skyrocketed post-pandemic. The burgeoning fraud rates that are associated with pandemic-related recovery efforts for small businesses have left a strange situation for firms that are faced with addressing the opportunity to bring new customers into their portfolio. Rapid new business formation during the pandemic Experian’s commercial inquiry analysis shows fraud rates across industries A recent analysis of Experian’s commercial credit inquiries has shown first-party fraud trends across multiple industries. The inquiries were scored by the new Commercial First Party Fraud Score, a score designed to predict first payment defaults, the results showed: Over 16% of recent Financial Services inquiries were rated as high-risk by our Commercial First-Party Fraud Score, with these inquiries were projected to carry 39% of all the first-party fraud risk within the population. Our Commercial First-Party Fraud Score rated over 39% of recent Fintech inquiries as high-risk. These inquiries were projected to carry 62% of all the first-party fraud risk within the population. Over 11% of recent inquiries from B2B companies were rated as high-risk by our Commercial First-Party Fraud Score. These inquiries were projected to carry 19% of all the first-party fraud risk within the population. Over 17% of recent inquiries from communications, energy, and media companies were rated as high-risk by our Commercial First-Party Fraud Score. These inquiries were projected to carry 35% of all the first-party fraud risk within the population. New solutions that can help firms achieve better fraud rates within their business portfolio When extending new services and devices to customers digitally, how do firms know that their customers are who they say they are, when the customer may have hardly any credit history? In an age where open-source regenerative AI solutions have sent waves through many organizations on what is truly possible in terms of automation and business planning, how can firms look at leveraging automation to stop fraud with intelligence? At a time when the economy is hinging on a strict diet of federal rate increases to tamper inflation, how can firms invest in additional technology given rapid shifts in consumer preferences and markets? The answer lies in creating an automation strategy that layers predictive insights and technologies to stop bleeding out resources in a reactive way. In the area of fraud, there are new solutions that can help firms to achieve better fraud rates within their business solutions portfolios while addressing all types of fraud. A layered fraud strategy is a valuable approach in solving this unique problem, giving the ability to identify high-risk segments within small business or commercial portfolios and focus vital resources on mitigating exposure while reducing friction within the customer experience for lower-risk businesses during the onboarding process. Experian’s Commercial Data Sciences team can help firms with the challenges they face in serving businesses of all sizes, by performing validations on existing portfolios to gain critical insights into the performance of their current fraud strategies. The outcome of these types of validations for firms has often resulted in flagging millions of dollars in fraud that could have been prevented within their business accounts. Experian’s Commercial Data Sciences team uses a combined approach in testing against historical files provided by the firm with different tools from Experian’s Sentinel™ Suite of Commercial Fraud Solutions, like Multipoint Verification, a tool that carries out entity verification and flags for identity fraud risk. By matching the firm’s data with Experian’s vast business and consumer data sets, and leveraging robust machine learning models, an analysis can be performed with an in-depth view of the risk exposure of any firm’s accounts using Experian’s unique new predictive score — Commercial First Party Fraud Score. Firms who have leveraged this approach can often see a hit rate of more than 99% with a dual-score strategy versus an 85% to 95% hit rate with consumer-only fraud scoring. This means that the layered strategy is highly predictive and accurate for fraudulent identity verification and first payment default. Many identifying pieces of information are important to understanding the true validity of identity. One surprising finding of many validations performed for firms is that the majority of the accounts in the sample they provide have valid email addresses which represented a large portion of their fraud rate. Of the accounts with valid emails, a high majority of the business owner contacts were not matched to the email addresses provided within the applications, via Multipoint Verification’s consumer-to-business linkage. This aspect of the validation points to the need for firms to truly verify their customer information at many points in the account lifecycle, not only within the new account onboarding phases as the account continues to grow. To learn more about how to use a layered strategy to gain insights on your own fraud rates within specific industries, click to download the holistic fraud eBook: Shock-proof your commercial strategy with comprehensive fraud tools. 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Since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the commercial real estate market is experiencing a paradigm shift as office professionals acclimated quite well to working from home, and many balk at going back to the office. As vacancy rates for offices hit record highs, supply of office space is greater than demand, reducing the value of many commercial properties. In parallel, The Federal Reserve’s 500bps of interest rate increases since March 2022 have made it more expensive for property owners to borrow and has left commercial real estate (CRE) lenders fearing greater risk of default will occur in the near future. August unemployment increased to 3.8% from 3.5% in July and is the highest since February 2022. Low unemployment continued to drive wages up with August wages reaching $29 per hour In anticipation of higher losses, CRE lenders are tightening their lending criteria, requiring higher down payments, shortening the loan term, and selling off or diversifying their CRE portfolios. Contrary to recent trends in office space pricing, and also contrary to impressions driven by media coverage focusing on increasing mall vacancies and mall closures, retail real estate appears to be rebounding since the pandemic. The average monthly rent per square foot for retail space has been increasing across the United States since the start of the pandemic. What I am watching There has been interest in re-purposing vacant commercial spaces into multi-family rental properties. As vacancies rise in office buildings and in some large urban malls, more CRE buildings are transitioning to hybrid residential/commercial spaces. A significant increase in residential living spaces should drive housing costs down, which would be a tremendous benefit to the public and help curb inflation. The labor market remains resilient but there are signs of weakening. While unemployment remained low at 3.8% in August, it is the highest since February 2022. The three-month moving average of jobs created in the U.S. declined to under 150K for the first time in a few years. If the labor market continues to weaken, employees will have less bargaining power and it is possible that employers will require workers to come back to work in-person in offices full time. If that comes to fruition, CRE owners and lenders will be in a much better position. Download Full Report Download the latest version of the Commercial Pulse Report here. Better yet, subscribe so you'll get it in your inbox every time it releases, or once a month as you choose.

The average 30-year mortgage rate climbed to 7.09%, the highest rate since April 2002. Existing home sales were 4.07MM in July, down 2.2% from June and 16.6% lower than a year ago. Since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, new businesses are opening at a record pace. New businesses tend to be smaller based on number of employees as well as annual revenues. While new businesses make up a greater portion of new commercial credit accounts, they receive less credit. In addition, a very small portion of new businesses actually seek traditional commercial credit. The diversity of funding sources that new businesses use can include personal savings, loans from family and friends or even grants. However, many of these sources currently face challenges. Lenders are tightening credit criteria Borrowing is more expensive with interest rates high since the Federal Reserve increased rates 500bps over the past year and a half Personal savings rates are down significantly after record savings during the pandemic With lower savings, banks have less cash on hand to lend What I am watching: As funding becomes scarce and more expensive, new business formations may begin to slow and the business failure rate is likely to grow. With fewer newbusiness ventures, individuals may re-enter the traditional labor market which would create more competition for jobs and increased unemployment in thecoming months.

The Federal Reserve’s efforts to tame inflation with aggressive interest rate hikes over the past 15 months appear to be working with July’s core inflation rate reaching the lowest level since October 2021. The U.S. labor market remains strong with low unemployment and 187K knew jobs created in July. As inflation eases and the economy continues to be strong, it is becoming more likely that we could experience a soft landing. Consumers continue to fuel the economy with retail sales hitting a record high in Q1 2023. E-commerce is a growing portion of sales, thus resulting in increased demand for last-mile delivery to consumers. In contrast, major retailers are coming off a post-pandemic inventory bubble created by supply chain shocks and elevated consumer demand, forcing them to now decrease inventory levels which is adversely impacting the commercial freight industry. High retail inventory levels and high interest rates are reducing orders so demand for commercial deliveries is down. This dynamic is negatively impacting the earnings of large freight companies and smaller carriers are beginning to exit the industry. This dynamic in addition to mounting debt after receiving $700MM in federal Covid-19 relief loans, is part of the reason that Yellow recently declared bankruptcy. What I am watching: Yellow was the third largest less-than-truckload carrier and is the largest trucking bankruptcy in the history of the U.S. It will be interesting see the ripple effects throughout the industry. It is widely expected that Yellow’s customers will drive up demand among other trucking companies and thereby increase prices across the industry. It is yet to be determined if increased shipping costs will be passed to consumers as the beginning of the holiday season approaches. With July inflation still above the Fed’s target of 2%, the Fed may issue another rate increase in 2023 before they begin monetary easing in 2024. High interest rates and high inventories will continue to suppress commercial freight demand. The freight industry will be required to optimize existing shipping assets and how they are deployed and shift operational focus from long-haul freight to last-mile solutions, filling the retailer to consumer demand. It is expected that the industry will continue to decrease in new entrant growth and an increase in business exists which will decrease excess capacity and increase demand for larger providers. The freight industry is a lifeline for U.S. consumers but is at a transformational point, it must adapt to these new market conditions. Subscribe Today Download the latest version of the Commercial Pulse Report here. Better yet, subscribe so you'll get it in your inbox every time it releases, or once a month as you choose.

Get the latest quarterly small business trends Mark your calendars! Experian and Oxford Economics will talk about small business credit conditions when we present key findings in the latest Main Street Report for Q2 2023 during the Quarterly Business Credit Review. Ryan Sweet, Oxford’s U.S. Chief Economist will share his take on Experian’s most recent small business credit data and a macroeconomic outlook for the coming quarter. Brodie Oldham, Experian’s V.P. of Commercial Data Science, will cover commercial credit trends. Brodie Oldham, V.P. Commercial Data Science Experian Ryan Sweet, U.S. Chief Economist Oxford Economics Q2 2023 Main Street Report The Q2 2023 Experian/Oxford Economics Main Street report will release on August 24th. If you are not already subscribed to thought leadership updates, be sure to sign up for updates on our Commercial Insights Hub. Event Details Date: Tuesday, Aug 29th, 2023Time: 10:00 a.m. (Pacific), 1:00 p.m. (Eastern) Why you should attend: Leading Experts on Commercial and Macro-Economic Trends Credit insights and trends on 30+ Million active businesses Ask our panel questions in real-time Industry Hot Topics Covered (Inclusive of Business Owner and Small Business Data) Commercial Insights you cannot get anywhere else Peer Insights with Interactive Polls (Participate) Discover and understand small business trends to make informed decisions Actionable takeaways based on recent credit performance Save My Seat

Highlights from the latest Beyond the Trends report Are you curious about the trends affecting the small business economy?  The just released Summer 2023 Beyond the Trends report is packed with valuable insights based on data from over 25 million active businesses and the expert opinions from Experian’s V.P. of Commercial Data Science.  This post covers some of the report's highlights, download your copy for the full scoop. A word from the report’s author: Energy Prices and Consumer Relief One of the most crucial takeaways from the report is that consumers and small businesses can expect continued relief in fuel prices in the coming months. This relief is due to the increased production of fuel in the United States and other countries. This production, coupled with other global and domestic factors, will provide more affordability in fuel costs for consumers and small businesses. This will help them manage their expenses better and, in turn, help producer costs decline, leading to more positive economic developments. Small Business Delinquency Small businesses, especially those that were propped up by stimulus money, are beginning to feel the pinch of inflation that is eating into their margins. Due to this, their savings are running lean, and many businesses are experiencing a rise in delinquencies. Delinquency rates have now exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Still, the report suggests that this is where they would expect delinquencies to be as the economy begins to grow gradually. Optimism Amidst Challenges Despite the lingering challenges and uncertainties brought about by the pandemic, small business owners remain optimistic. The report shows that the overall sentiment among small business owners is still positive, and they continue to seek out opportunities and innovations that could lead to growth and success. This is a positive development, and it's critical for businesses to continue to be agile and open to new opportunities and ideas. In closing: Small businesses are facing challenges such as filling job openings, higher costs,  delinquencies and rising debt, but they remain optimistic and focused on opportunities for growth. By staying true to their values and fundamentals, businesses can thrive even in uncertain times. Grab your copy of the Summer 2023 Beyond the Trends report for more interesting insights on small businesses and their challenges. Download Beyond The Trends Summer 2023 Report

The post-pandemic economic landscape is experiencing an alarming rise in fraudulent activity affecting both businesses and consumers. With 75% of creditors experiencing heightened fraud losses and a 50% increase in fraud reports as per the FTC, the situation grows increasingly challenging. The expansion of e-commerce and the increasing sophistication of the dark web as a marketplace for stolen data exacerbate cybercrime threats. Moreover, lenders struggle to differentiate vast numbers of newly-formed businesses from bad actors due to limited data history available for decisioning. Amidst this, while Artificial Intelligence offers substantial promise in combatting fraud, it also significantly expands fraudsters’ toolboxes and poses significant fraud risks to creditors and consumers. To address these pressing concerns, businesses must step up their fraud risk management game by proactively adopting new fraud detection data and capabilities, and by integrating commercial entity and consumer data into their fraud decisioning strategies. What I am watching: The latest inflation report and jobs report showed positive news for the economy. Unemployment remains low and job creation is slowing but still strong. Inflation was down to 3% in June, the lowest in over two years, and closing in on the Fed’s target of 2%. Despite earlier indications of more interest rate hikes this year, this encouraging news may lead the Fed to leave interest rates alone at their upcoming July meeting. Subscribe Today Download the latest version of the Commercial Pulse Report here. Better yet, subscribe so you'll get it in your inbox every time it releases, or once a month as you choose.