At Experian, we believe in fostering innovation and collaboration to solve complex challenges. Recently, Ivan Ahmed, one of our talented product management leaders at Experian Housing, had the opportunity to participate in the FHFA 2024 TechSprint, where his team won the award for the best Risk Management and Compliance idea. In this article, we share Ivan's experience as he reflects on the TechSprint, the inspiration behind his team's project, and the valuable lessons learned. Can you share your experience participating in the FHFA 2024 TechSprint? What was the atmosphere like, and how did it feel to be recognized for the best Risk Management and Compliance idea? Let me start by explaining what a TechSprint is. It is a fast-paced, high-energy collaborative workshop where diverse experts and stakeholders come together to design technological solutions to complex problems. Each team is given a high-level problem and use case. From there, stakeholders and domain experts must develop a proof of concept within 3 days to best address the problem. On the last and final day, called the “Demo Day,” teams must showcase their solution in front of a panel of judges. It’s a fun, high-energy, challenging, and rewarding experience. A TechSprint is a convergence of everything I love – technology, business, and design and I think FHFA did a wonderful job orchestrating the event. Each team consisted of representatives from different functions in the housing ecosystem, including lenders, technologists, product managers, and regulators. We were given access to a room, whiteboards, and, most importantly, delicious snacks. We were also given access to industry subject matter experts outside our teams, including representatives from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, FHFA, and leaders from top companies. What I found the most impactful was the ability to pressure test our ideas and solutions against these industry subject matter experts. Ideating in a vacuum can be challenging, so being able to stress test things rapidly with these experts allowed us to change course quickly as new information was introduced. Winning the best Risk Management and Compliance idea award was rewarding, especially as we were able to ideate a solution to such a critical accessibility issue. Ultimately, our goal was to help create a fairer, more equitable, and inclusive housing finance system. A big shoutout to my teammates, Wemimo Abbey, Joseph Karbowski, Will Regenauer, and Eddy Atkins. What inspired Team Arsenal to focus on identifying potential gaps in ADA compliance within multifamily buildings, and what were some of the key challenges your team faced during the process? My mother has suffered from several disabilities most of her life. With age, she has become more wheelchair-dependent, and traveling has become a major challenge. On a recent family trip, the entry to our hotel building wasn’t ADA-compliant, and I had to carry her up a flight of stairs. It was frustrating to deal with. I later went down a rabbit hole around ADA compliance and, much to my surprise, learned that only 0.15% of all homes in the U.S. are wheelchair accessible! As we explored the problem space further as a team, we learned how difficult it is to ensure that new and existing rental homes are ADA-compliant. We hypothesized that a solution is needed to establish incentives for borrowers, lenders, and GSEs to meet compliance. A technological solution could more easily enable multi-family lenders and builders to identify rental units that are non-ADA compliant and could provide ways to address the gaps. We noticed two primary challenges: an enforcement gap and an incentive gap. We learned that agency loans (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) account for most multi-family home loan originations. If we could tackle the enforcement challenge at the GSE level, we could set up the proper incentives for all players in the multi-family lending process. By providing tools to both the borrower and the GSE’s, we could help foster a more inclusive and accessible rental housing market. How do you envision your AI-driven solution impacting the rental housing market and improving ADA compliance for multifamily buildings? We wanted to ensure that we leveraged the true power of Generative AI, which meant that our solution could take multimodal inputs and produce multimodal outputs. For example, we could train the Generative AI model on photos of interior multi-family rental units and structured or unstructured text like building sketches, site layouts, and local building codes. We could then incorporate ADA design requirements and analyze discrepancies. The result would be a compliance report or tool outlining the adherence level to ADA design requirements and providing tips and recommendations on remediation. The solution could be delivered as a free tool by the GSEs, who could incentivize its usage by offering price concessions to borrowers. Developers could also use the tool to evaluate whether new or existing builds were ADA-compliant. How did your background and experience with Experian contribute to developing your team's winning idea at the FHFA TechSprint? Much of my role at Experian has involved exploring ways to leverage proprietary and public record property data for marketing, account review, and analytical use cases. I work very closely with property data at Experian, so I was very familiar with the types of input fields of property data that would be the most relevant to improving a generative AI model output. Specifically, in our use case, we wanted to train the model to better identify homes and features that were non-compliant with ADA and provide clear remediation steps. We knew that public record property information was available from various sources and could be leveraged as additional third-party input data to improve our model accuracy. What advice would you give to other teams or individuals looking to participate in future TechSprint events, especially those aiming to tackle complex issues like risk management and compliance? It’s important to remember that an ideal solution is both impactful and practical. Practicality is achieved when the solution has both business and technical viability. Therefore, it’s crucial to carefully vet problems and solutions by understanding their viability. Working as a team to solve the problem means leveraging the expertise of subject matter experts around you. Each team member should draw on their strengths, making the collective effort stronger than individual contribution. Most importantly, fairness, inclusivity, and accessibility matter. An effective solution should strive to have a positive social impact in addition to other considerations. Winning with purpose Ivan’s journey through the FHFA 2024 TechSprint exemplifies the innovative and collaborative spirit that drives our team at Experian. His reflections highlight the impact of well-designed technological solutions on critical issues like ADA-compliance in multifamily housing. We hope Ivan’s experience inspires others to explore their potential in solving complex problems and to participate in future TechSprints, where innovative thinking and a commitment to social good can lead to meaningful change.

Driven by a range of appealing factors including lower monthly payments and a wider array of models—due to the continuous rise in new vehicle inventory—leasing has reappeared as an optimal choice for consumers who are in the market for a vehicle. According to Experian’s State of the Automotive Finance Market Report: Q2 2024, leasing increased to 25.35%, up from 21.14% in Q2 2023 and 19.30% the year prior. While the average monthly payment and interest rate for a new loan modestly increased year-over-year, leasing is increasingly becoming a more attractive option for those leaning towards flexibility and affordability. For example, the average monthly payment on a leased vehicle was $148 less than a loan this quarter. What’s more, it seems consumers are leaning towards larger vehicles. For instance, the Honda CR-V (2.98%) continued to lead the top leased models in Q2 2024, and it was followed closely by the Tesla Model Y (2.61%). Rounding out the top five were the Honda Civic (2.29%), Ford F-150 (2.02%), and Chevrolet Silverado 1500 (1.86%). Prime financing grows and lease payments decline across all segments When looking at risk distribution trends in Q2 2024, prime consumers accounted for nearly 70% of the total finance market—with prime coming in at 37.82%, down from 39.84% last year and super prime increasing from 28.98% to 31.59% year-over-year. Subprime also saw a slight increase, going from 13% to 13.06% during the same period. It’s notable that all risk segments experienced a decrease in average monthly payments for leased vehicles, as super prime went from $601 in Q2 2023 to $586 in Q2 2024, prime declined to $583 this quarter, from $596 last year, and subprime was at $597, from $611. With the average monthly payments declining year-over-year for majority of shoppers, it can potentially create a more competitive market and drive more consumers towards this finance option—something automotive professionals should keep a close eye on. New and used vehicle finance market overview Data in Q2 2024 found that new vehicle loan amounts increased slightly, reaching $40,927, up from $40,743 last year, and the average interest rate went from 6.78% to 6.84% year-over-year. Despite the increases, the average monthly payment for a new vehicle only experienced a $1 growth to $734 this quarter. On the used side, the average loan amount declined from $27,316 Q2 2023 to $26,248 in Q2 2024, and the average rate grew from 11.47% to 12.01% in the same time frame. Though, the average monthly payment declined to $525 this quarter, from $536 last year. As the automotive industry continues to adapt to the changing market conditions and consumer preferences, it’s important for professionals to leverage the most current data—this will allow them to effectively assist consumers by meeting their financial needs with the available options. To learn more about automotive finance trends, view the full State of the Automotive Finance Market: Q2 2024 presentation on demand.

Voter registration lists are the backbone of our democratic process. However, maintaining accurate and up-to-date lists is a challenge that election agencies constantly face. With several regulations related to voting and election integrity that have been enacted or proposed in the last two years, maintaining a quality voter list is more important now than ever before. Election officials now have a powerful tool at their disposal: commercially available data to enhance voter list maintenance and boost voter confidence.  The importance of maintaining voter lists  Audit teams within election agencies are tasked with ensuring election integrity through voter list maintenance. These teams need reliable tools to:  Verify and correct voter registration data  Identify and update contact information  Provide a cost-effective method for record updates  Reduce election costs for taxpayers  Success stories in voter list management  Case study: West Virginia Secretary of State   The West Virginia Secretary of State (WVSOS) uses Experian’s TrueTrace™ solution to enhance voter roll maintenance. Traditionally a skip-tracing solution for debt collectors, TrueTrace leverages unique data sources to ensure voters receive correct information, reducing wasted resources and improving election efficiency.  WVSOS was challenged with enhancing their existing processes to a more robust 50-state comparison for cross-state movers.  After WVSOS’s first data pull using TrueTrace, nearly 16,000 individuals were identified with a potential new "best" address that were also not flagged by other data comparison programs used by the state.  The results? Of the almost 16,000 mailings sent, about 25% returned were undeliverable, confirming those individuals had moved.   Access the full case study to discover best practices for maintaining voter rolls and conducting cost-effective elections.  Webinar: El Paso County Clerk & Recorder's Office   The El Paso County Clerk & Recorder’s Office was looking to bring transparency, efficiency, and increased voter confidence to the elections in El Paso County, Texas. To achieve this, they required verified enriched data for registered voters. By partnering with Experian, voter data was enriched using our TrueTrace solution. This partnership has enabled the Office to verify and append the most up-to-date voter address, leading to significant improvements in list maintenance.   To date, the El Paso County Clerk & Recorder’s Office has seen a reduction of more than $39,860 in undeliverable ballot costs. Their ROI to date is a positive $4,537 back to the citizens of El Paso County.  Listen to our on-demand webinar to hear more about this collaboration.  Visit us online to learn more about our public sector solutions. Learn more