Fintech

APIs--Application Programming Interfaces--are the hidden backbone of our modern world which allow software programs to communicate with one another.

In Experian’s latest State of Student Lending report, we dive into how the $1.4 trillion in student loan debt for Americans is impacting all generations in regards to credit scores, debt load and delinquencies.

Many institutions take a “leap of faith” when it comes to developing prospecting strategies as it pertains to credit marketing. How can a data-driven approach help?

Student loan debt — outstanding debt grew 21 percent since 2013 to reach a high of $1.49 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2016.

The first wave of Gen Z are coming onto the credit file. Here is a first look at how they are behaving, and what this means for businesses and finance companies.

Synthetic identity fraud is an epidemic that does more than negatively affect portfolio performance. It can hurt your reputation as a trusted organization.

New CFPB study demonstrates the importance of moving forward with inclusion of new sources of high-quality financial data — like on-time payment data from rent, utility and telecommunications providers — into a consumer’s credit file.

Later this year, FICO will retire its Score V1, making it mandatory for those lenders still using the old software to find another solution.

There are about as many definitions for people-based marketing as there are companies using the term. Each company seems to skew the definition to fit their particular service offering. The distinctions are vast, and especially for financial services companies running regulated campaigns, they can be incredibly important. At Experian, we define people-based marketing in its purest form: targeting at the individual level across channels. This is a practice we’re very familiar with in offline marketing, having honed arguably one of the most accurate views of U.S. consumers over the past three decades. And now we’re taking those tried and true principals and applying them to digital channels. It’s not as easy as it sounds. The challenge with people-based marketing  With direct mail, people-based marketing was easy. Jane Doe lives at 123 Main St. If I want to reach her, I can simply send her a direct mail piece at that address. To help, I can utilize any number of services, including the National Change of Address database, to know where to reach her if she ever moves. People-based marketing through digital channels is exponentially more difficult. While direct mail has one signal with which you use to identify a consumer (the address), digital channels offer countless signals. And not all of those signals can be used, either individually or in conjunction with other signals, to reliably tie a consumer to a persistent offline ID. A prime example of this is cookies. The problem with cookies A cookie, in and of itself, isn’t the problem. The problem is the linkage. How was a cookie associated with the person to whom the ad is being served? As marketers, we need to make sure that we are reaching the right people with the right ad … and more importantly not reaching those people who have opted out. This is especially true in the world of regulated data, where you need to know who you are targeting. And cookie-based linkage is controlled by a handful of companies, many of which are walled gardens who don’t share how they link offline people to online cookies and don’t collect this information directly. They rely on other third-party websites to gather PII, and connect it to their cookies. In some cases, the data is very accurate (especially with transaction data). In some cases, it is not (think websites that collect PII when giving surveys, offering coupons, etc.). In short, in order for you to use cookie-based targeting accurately, you need to have insight into the source of the base linkage data that was used to connect the offline consumer record to the online cookie. This same concept applies to all forms of digital linkage that drive people-based marketing. Why does people-based marketing matter in digital credit marketing?  With campaigns that utilize non-regulated data, such as “Invitation to Apply” campaigns that are driven from demographic and psychographic data, the consequences of not reaching the consumer you meant to target are negligible. But with campaigns that utilize regulated data, you must ensure you’re targeting the exact consumer you meant to reach. More importantly, you must make sure you’re not targeting an ad to a consumer who had previously opted out of receiving offers driven with regulated data (prescreen offers, for example). Even if you’ve already delivered a direct mail piece with the same offer, this doesn’t negate your responsibility to reach only approved consumers who have not opted out. --- Bottom line, the world of 1:1 marketing is growing more sophisticated, and that’s a good thing. Marketers just need to understand that while regulated data can be powerful, they must also take great responsibility when handling it. The data exists to deliver firm offers of credit to your very specific target in all-new mediums. People-based marketing has its place, and it can now be done in a compliant, digitally-savvy way – in the financial services space, nonetheless.   Register for our webinar on Credit Marketing Strategies to Drive Today's Digital Consumer.

The final day of Vision 2017 brought a seasoned group of speakers to discuss a wide range of topics. In just a few short hours, attendees dove into a first look at Gen Z and their use of credit, ecommerce fraud, the latest in retail, the state of small business and leadership. Move over Millennials – Gen Z is coming of credit age Experian Analytics leaders Kelley Motley and Natasha Madan gave audience members an exclusive look at how the first wave of Gen Z is handling and managing credit. Granted most of this generation is still under the age of 18, so the analysis focused on those between the ages of 18 to 20. Yes, Millennials are still the dominant generation in the credit world today, standing strong at 61 million individuals. But it’s important to note Gen Z is sized at 86 million, so as they age, they’ll be the largest generation yet. A few stats to note about those Gen Z individuals managing credit today: Their average debt is $12,679, compared to younger Millennials (21 to 27) who have $65,473 in debt and older Millennials (28 to 34) who sport $121,460. Given their young age, most of Gen Z is considered thin-file (less than 5 tradelines) Average Gen Z income is $33,000, and average debt-to-income is low at 5.7%. New bankcard balances are averaging around $1,574. As they age, acquire mortgages and vehicles, their debt and tradelines will grow. In the meantime, the speakers provided audience members a few tips. Message with authenticity. Think long-term with this group. Maintain their technological expectations. Build trust and provide financial education. State of business credit and more on the economy Moody’s Cris deRitis reiterated the U.S. economy is looking good. He quoted unemployment at 4.5%, stating “full employment is here.” Since the recession, he said we’ve added 15 million jobs, noting we lost 8 million during the recession. The great news is that the U.S. continues to add about 200,000 jobs a month, and that job growth is broad-based. Small business loans are up 10% year-to-date vs. last year. While there has been a tremendous amount of buzz around small business, he adds that most job creation has come from mid0size business (50 to 499 employees). The case for layered fraud systems Experian speaker John Sarreal shared a case study that revealed by layering on fraud products and orchestrating collaboration, a business can go from a string 75% fraud detection rate to almost 90%. Additionally, he commented that Experian is working to leverage dark web data to mine for breached identity data. More connections for financial services companies to make with mobile and social Facebook speaker Olivia Basu reinforced the need for all companies to be thinking about mobile. “Mobile is not about to happen,” she said. “Mobile is now. Mobile is everything. You look at the first half of 2017 and we’re seeing 40% of all purchases are happening on mobile devices.” Her challenge to financial services companies is to make marketing personal again, and of course leverage the right channels. Experian Sr. Director of Credit Marketing Scott Gordon commented on Experian’s ability to reach consumers accurately – whether that be through direct or digital delivery channels. A great deal of focus has been around person-based marketing vs. leveraging the cookie. -- The Vision conference was capped off with a keynote speech from legendary quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady. He chatted about the details of this past season, and specifically the comeback Super Bowl win in February 2017. He additionally talked about leadership and what that means to creating a winning team and organization. -- Multiple keynote speeches, 65 breakout sessions, and hours of networking designed to help all attendees ready themselves for growing profits and customers, step up to digital, regulatory and fraud challenges, and capture the latest data insights. Learn more about Experian’s annual Vision conference.  

Risk analysts are insatiable consumers of big data who require better intelligence to develop market insights, evaluate risk and confirm business strategies. While every credit decision, risk assessment model or marketing forecast improves when it is based on better, faster and more current data, leveraging large data sets can be challenging and unproductive. That’s why Experian added a new functionality to its Analytical Sandbox, giving clients the flexibility they need to analyze big data efficiently. Experian’s Analytical Sandbox now utilizes H2O –an open source machine learning and deep learning platform that can model and predict with high accuracy billions of rows of high-dimensional data from multiple sources in various formats. Through machine learning and advanced predictive modeling, the platform enables Experian to better provide on-demand data insights that empowers analysts with high-quality intelligence to inform regional trends, provide consumer transactional insight or expose marketing opportunities. As a hosted service, Sandbox is offered as a plug-and-play, meaning no internal development is required. Clients can instantly access the data through a secure Web interface on their desktop, giving users access to powerful artificial and business intelligence tools from their own familiar applications. No special training is required. “AI monetizes data,” said SriSatish Ambati, CEO of H2O.ai. “Our partnership with Experian democratizes and delivers AI to the wider community of financial and risk analysts. Experian's analytics sandbox can now model and predict with high accuracy billions of rows of high-dimensional data in mere seconds.” Through H2O and the Experian Sandbox, machine learning and predictive analytics are giving risk managers from financial institutions of all sizes the ability to incorporate machine learning models into their own big data processing systems.

In just a few short hours, Vision attendees immersed themselves into the depths of the economy, risk models, specialty finance data, credit invisibles, student loan data, online marketplace lending and more. The morning kicked off with one of the most respected and trusted macroeconomists in the U.S., Diane Swonk. With a rap sheet filled with advising central banks and multinational companies, Swonk treated a packed house to a look back on what has transpired in the U.S. economy since the Great Recession, as well as launching into current state and speculating on the months ahead. She described the past decade not as “lost, but rather lagging.” She went onto to say this past year was transitional, and while markets slowed slightly during the months leading up the U.S. presidential election, good things are happening: We’ve finally broken out of the 2% wage rut Recruiting on college campuses has picked up The labor force is growing Debt-to-income levels have returned to where they were prerecession and Investment is coming back. “I believe we’ll see growth over 2% this year,” said Swonk. Still, change is underway. She commented on how the way U.S. consumer spending is changing, and of course we’re seeing a restructuring in the retail space. While JC Penney announces store closings, you simultaneously see Amazon moving from “click to brick,” dabbling in the opening of some actual storefronts. Globally, she said the economy is the strongest it has been in eight years. She closed by noting there is a great deal of political change and unrest in the world today, but says, “Never underestimate our abilities when we tap our human capital.” -- More than 100 attendees filled a room to hear about the current trends and the future of online lending with featured guests from Oliver Wyman, Marlette Funding and Lending USA. While speakers commented on the “hiccup” in the space last year with some layoffs and mergers, volume has continued to double every year for the past several years with roughly $40 billion in cumulative originations today. Panelists discussed the use of alternative data to decision, channel bias, the importance of partnerships and how the market will see fewer and fewer players offering just one product specialty. “It is expensive to acquire customers, so you don’t just want to have one product to sell, but rather a range,” said Sharat Shankar of Lending USA. -- The numbers in the student lending universe are astounding. In a session focused on the U.S. student loan market, new Experian data reveals there is $1.49 billion in total student loan outstandings. In fact, total outstandings have grown 21% over the past four years, while the number of trades have only grown 4%. Costs are skyrocketing. The average balance per trade has grown 17% over the past four years. “We don’t ration education in this country,” said Joe DePaulo of College Ave. Student Loans. “We give everyone access to liquidity when it comes to federal student loans – and it’s not like that in other countries.” While DePaulo notes the access is great, offering many students the opportunity to obtain higher education, he says the problem is with disclosures. Guardians are often the individuals filling out the FAFSA, but the students inherit the loans. Students, he says, rarely understand how much their monthly payment will ultimately be after graduation. For every $10,000 in student loans, he says that will generally equate to a $100 monthly payment. -- Tomorrow, Vision attendees will be treated to more breakout sessions and a concluding keynote with legendary quarterback Tom Brady.

So many insights and learnings to report after the first full day of 2017 Vision sessions. From the musings shared by tech engineer and pioneer Steve Wozniak, to a panel of technology thought leaders, to countless breakout sessions on a wide array of business topics … here’s a look at our top 10 from the day. A mortgage process for the digital age. At last. In his opening remarks, Experian President of Credit Services Alex Lintner asked the audience to imagine a world when applying for a mortgage simply required a few clicks or swipes. Instead of being sent home to collect a hundred pieces of paper to verify employment, income and assets, a consumer could click on a link and provide a few credentials to verify everything digitally. Finally, lenders can make this a reality, and soon it will be the only way consumers expect to go through the mortgage process. The global and U.S. economies are stable. In fact, they are strong. As Experian Vice President of Analytics Michele Raneri notes, “the fundamentals and technicals look really solid across the countries.” While many were worried a year ago that Brexit would turn the economy upside down, it appears everything is good. Consumer confidence is high. The Dow Jones Index is high. The U.S. unemployment rate is at 4.7%. Home prices are up year-over-year. While there has been a great deal of change in the world – politically and beyond – the economy is holding strong. The rise of the micropreneur. This term is not officially in the dictionary … but it will be. What is it? A micropreneur is a business with 0 to 4 employees bringing in no more than $200k in annual revenue. But the real story is that numbers show microbusiness are improving on many fronts when it comes to contribution to the economy and overall performance compared to other small businesses. Keep an eye on these budding business people. Fraud is running fierce. Synthetic identity losses are estimated in the hundreds of millions annually, with 50% year-over year growth. Criminals are now trying to use credit cleaners to get tradelines removed from used Synthetic IDs. Oh, and it is essential for businesses to ready themselves for “Dark Web” threats. Experts advise to harden your defenses (and play offense) to keep pace with the criminal underground. As soon as you think you’ve protected everything, the criminals will find a gap. The cloud is cool and so are APIs. A panel of thought leaders took to the main stage to discuss the latest trends in tech. Experian Global CIO Barry Libenson said, “The cloud has changed the way we deliver services to our customers and clients, making it seamless and elastic.” Combine that with API, and the goal is to ultimately make all Experian data available to its customers. Experian President of Decision Analytics Steve Platt added, “We are enabling you to tap into what you need, when you need it.” No need to “rip and replace” all your tech. Expect more regulation – and less. A panel of regulatory experts addressed the fast-changing regulatory environment. With the new Trump administration settling in, and calls for change to Dodd-Frank and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), it’s too soon to tell what will unfold in 2017. CFPB Director Richard Cordray may be making a run for governor of Ohio, so he could be transitioning out sooner than the scheduled close of his July 2018 term. The auto market continues to cruise. Experian’s auto expert, Malinda Zabritski, revealed the latest and greatest stats pertaining to the auto market. A few numbers to blow your mind … U.S. passenger cars and light trucks surpassed 17 million units for the second consecutive year Most new vehicle buyers in the U.S. are 45 years of age or older Crossover and sport utility vehicles remain popular, accounting for 40% of the market in 2016 – this is also driving up finance payments since these vehicles are more expensive. There are signs the auto market is beginning to soften, but interest rates are still low, and leasing is hot. Defining alternative data. As more in the industry discuss the need for alternative data to decision, it often gets labeled as something radical. But in reality, alternative data should be simple. Experian Sr. Director of Government Affairs Liz Oesterle defined it as “getting more financial data in the system that is predicted, validated and can be disputed.” #DeathtoPasswords – could it be a reality? It’s no secret we live in a digital world where we are increasingly relying on apps and websites to manage our lives, but let’s throw out some numbers to quantify the shift. In 2013, the average U.S. consumer had 26 online accounts. By 2015, that number increased to 118 online accounts. By 2020, the average person will have 207 online accounts. When you think about this number, and the passwords associated with these accounts, it is clear a change needs to be made to managing our lives online. Experian Vice President David Britton addressed his session, introducing the concept of creating an “ultimate consumer identity profile,” where multi-source data will be brought together to identify someone. It’s coming, and all of us managing dozens of passwords can’t wait. “The Woz.” I guess you needed to be there, but let’s just say he was honest, opinionated and notes that while he loves tech, he loves it even more when it enables us to live in the “human world.” Too much wonderful content to share, but more to come tomorrow …

In a May 4 speech before the ACA International Conference in Washington, FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly criticized the FCC’s past decisions on Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and outlined his vision on the direction that the new Commission should head to provide more certainty to businesses. Commissioner O’Rielly noted that prior decisions by the FCC and courts have “expanded the boundaries of TCPA far beyond what I believe Congress intended.” He said that the new leadership at the Commission and a new Bureau head overseeing TCPA, provides the FCC with the opportunity to “undo the misguided and harmful TCPA decisions of the past that exposed legitimate companies to massive legal liability without actually protecting consumers.” O’Rielly laid out three principles that he thought would help to frame discussions and guide the development of replacement rules. First, he said that legitimate businesses need to be able to contact consumers to communicate information that they want, need or expect to receive. This includes relief for informational calls, as well as valid telemarketing calls or texts. Second, Commissioner O’Rielly said that FCC should change the definition of an autodialer so that valid callers can operate in an efficient manner. He went on to say that if FCC develops new rules to clarify revocation of consent, it should do so in a clear and convenient way for consumers, but also does not upend standard best practices of legitimate companies. Third, O’Rielly said that the FCC should focus on actual harms and bad actors, not legitimate companies. While Commissioner O’Rielly’ s comments signal his approach to TCPA reform, it is important to note that FCC action on the issue us unlikely to happen overnight. A rule must be considered by the Commission, which will have to allow for public notice and comment. Experian will continue to monitor regulatory and legislative developments on TCPA.

May is Military Appreciation Month, and also a fitting time to check in on the latest news attached to the Military Lending Act, with card compliance coming in October 2017.