Vision 2014: The State of U.S. Business Credit from Experian Business Information Services Experian’s Business Information Services and Moody’s Analytics have been reporting on the health of small business credit on a quarterly basis since 2010, publishing the Small Business Credit Index report. In this joint session moderated by Brian Ward, Senior Director – Integrated Marketing,  Joel Pruis, Senior Business Consultant from Experian’s Global Consulting Practice and Moody’s Analytics Senior Director Cristian deRitis offered an in-depth analysis of business credit health across the United States. Cristian deRitis kicked the small business credit session into gear by taking the audience through an economic outlook, starting by reviewing of the economic progress started in part by austerity measures following the Great Recession. Joel Pruis continued the discussion with the “West vs. the Rest” small business credit conditions in the US adding national industry performance in various key metrics and resulting small business application volume trends. Experian’s Business Information Services unveiled a new interactive Business Information Map which provides key insights on business credit health by state and metropolitan statistical areas (MSA). The map enables users to get a visual representation of how states and MSA’s are performing in four key business credit health categories, including risk score, number of days businesses pay their bills past due, delinquency rates and bankruptcy rates.  The map includes the most recent quarter’s performance, year-over-year comparison and industry-level analysis. Tweet This! [VIEW NOW] New interactive map on business trends in the US #vision2014  http://bit.ly/visionibim         Click to Tweet Want to know the health of US businesses?  View the new Business Information Map #vision2014 http://bit.ly/visionibim             Click to Tweet Check out Experian's Business Information Map for great #smallbiz credit stats #vision2014  http://bit.ly/visionibim             Click to Tweet I Heart Maps – especially #business #information maps #vision2014 http://bit.ly/visionibim        Click to Tweet Business delinquency in the West shows signs of a comeback!  Compare YOY in our interactive map #vision2014 http://bit.ly/visionibim             Click to Tweet Analyze regional #smallbusiness #credit health with Experian's  #business information map #vision2014 http://bit.ly/visionibim          Click to Tweet Learn more about Experian’s Business Information Map by going to:  www.experian.com/ibim  

Day two of Experian’s 33rd annual Vision 2014 Conference in Dallas included a full morning of education on topics related to the economy and the industry. Chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, Dr. James Paulsen kicked off today’s events delivering a powerful keynote address on the economic and financial outlook for the U.S. Following Dr. Paulsen’s remarks, conference attendees headed into the day’s breakout sessions, including an update on the U.S. auto industry from Experian Automotive. According to Melinda Zabritski from Experian, in Q4 2014 U.S. auto loan balances grew to their highest level on record, $799 billion with new leases also expanding to a high of 28.84 percent. Another interesting topic covered today was a deep dive analysis on millennial borrowers, an important audience for lenders as they consider growth opportunity in the market. Experian’s analysis shows that this digitally-savvy population has different needs for loan products, communication and most importantly, credit education. We will be back with another update from Vision, and remember to follow our updates from the show on Twitter or read the announcements on our Vision page on LinkedIn. And check out some favorite tweets from today's conference.

Experian kicked off its 33rd annual Vision 2014 Conference today in Dallas with the keynote address that attendees have been anticipating for months – President Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States and founder of The Clinton Foundation. Although President Clinton addressed many topics in his talk including some of the important initiatives his foundation is spearheading, the theme centered around creative cooperation and the success that is achievable when people focus on their common goals. Experian hosted 32 breakout sessions throughout the day for attendees. Experian thought leaders, clients and industry experts discussed how to achieve quality growth in a challenging economic and competitive environment. View slides from today's presentations:  Know your enemy – a financial institutions best practices for preventing the latest fraud attacks Customer acquisitions in a changing digital landscape The new world of commercial lending – optimizing opportunities and winning new customers Trends in commercial card and small business lending The evolving landscape of customer management To trust or not to trust Regulatory requirements for model risk governance continue to evolve And check out some favorite tweets from today's conference.

Is your organization prepared to meet these requirements? Although some of the regulatory guidance on Model Risk Governance was released recently, it is nothing new and needs to bean integral and integrated part of an organization’s way of thinking, risk management and overall business strategy. Many organizations have recently invested in this area.  Given the significant time and resource required and the need to know and follow industry best practice, these same organizations have reached out and partnered with Experian as their trusted advisor.  Experian has helped all types and sizes of financial institutions to not just ensure regulatory and compliance demands are met but to meet their business needs and objectives, protect their safety and soundness and increase profitability and return.  Experian has played whatever role needed, whether it is analytics, modeling, consulting or simply staff augmentation, for many of the Top 5 U.S. Banks and international banks in addition to mid-size to small banks, financial institutions and credit unions. One important outcome of the financial crisis of the late 2000’s was increased regulatory oversight which includes an emphasis and need to track changes in the economic environment, as well as, ensure proper application of model development, implementation, use and governance in order to make sure there are no undue risks and ensure the safety and soundness of the institution.  This is clearly not a one-time exercise but a valuable on-going part of proper risk management that will lead to better decisions and enhanced business performance. Let Experian help show you the way! Vision 2014: Regulatory requirements for model risk governance from Experian Business Information Services Tweet This! Changes in economic environment or misapplication of models exposes an organization  Click to Tweet Regulators expect greater use of risk models as result oversight increased to review the mgmnt of these models http://ex.pn/RodDsG  Click to Tweet Model Risk Governance not new concept, but emerging best practice for model risk attribute stability mgmt http://ex.pn/RodDsG #vision201  Click to Tweet  

To trust or not to trust is the ultimate question when it comes to online, card not present transactions. For e-commerce merchants and online shoppers it should be a two-way street. But far too often, a customer who should be trusted has a transaction wrongfully declined. This tarnishes their relationship with the merchant, the bank and the credit-card company, resulting in loss of revenues, interchange fees and most importantly, lifetime loyalty. The impact of consumer action in the face of a decline can have real and measurable effects on all parties, including credit card companies, banks and merchants manifesting itself in lost revenues, lost fees and lost customer loyalty. In fact, in a recently commissioned independent survey by 41st Parameter, a part of Experian, 17% of consumers surveyed had an online transaction declined. That equals about $40 billion lost each year due to false positives… $40 billion that could be reclaimed. What’s even more distressing for consumers, however, is how they FEEL when their online transaction is declined. 83% of those surveyed felt upset, embarrassed or just plain angry. These powerful emotions are evident in WHO the consumer blames for the unwarranted decline – the simple fact is that consumers blame everyone; from the issuing bank to the credit network to the online merchant. Bottom line; everyone loses. Unnecessary operational costs. Decreased loyalty. Interchange loss. Lost revenues. These are just some of the negatives to unwarranted CNP transaction declines. This session will explore how to improve customer service and loyalty by leveraging information merchants and issues already have about consumers – including their buying patterns, methods and payment and devices they use. The combination of these and other factors creates a TrustScore which helps both the merchant AND the issuer determine if these are consumers that can be trusted – even if they only shop with a merchant on a casual basis.  Recognizing customers through trusted digital identities and approving more CNP transactions in real-time provides the opportunity for online retailers to collectively boost top-line revenues by as a much as $1 billion annually. Vision 2014: To Trust or Not To Trust from Experian Business Information Services Tweet this! $40B lost each year b/c unnecessary red flags raised & transactions blocked http://bit.ly/41stinfo #vision2014  Click to Tweet 38% of online shoppers blame their credit card company for CNP http://bit.ly/41stinfo #vision2014 Click to Tweet What’s the key to commerce in the digital world? Trust. How do we know that? Here’s the data to prove it. http://bit.ly/41stinfo #vision2014  Click to Tweet [INFOGRAPHIC] How to foster consumer trust in a digital world http://bit.ly/41stinfo #vision2014 Click to Tweet

Increasingly Experian’s clients are questioning whether they are extracting full value from their data.  There’s more data, more accessible analytic capability – there should be more value created.  But this growing information asset needs to be harnessed by targeting it in the right way (generating the right insights) and having the processes to minimize the time from insight to action. Technology and techniques need to be aligned to efficiently capture, analyze and action customer insight in a concerted way, with the customer view at the center of this activity.  Understanding customers’ current circumstances, and the challenges & opportunities they are likely to encounter, can help us establish what they need right now and predict their future needs.  Identifying life event triggers, and effectively actioning these triggers, can help us ensure that we’re maximizing the customer’s lifetime value with the right communications, with the right content, at the right time. There are two distinct directions companies are taking to extract value from their new customer insight.  The more established route is refining the current business (e.g., optimizing offer pricing, enhancing pre-attrition and pre-default models, and refining cross-sale relevancy models). But increasingly, companies are looking to their customer data as a platform for expanding their business – either by using their unique customer insights to market external propositions or by identifying adjacencies where their existing client base provides a competitive advantage. Either way, customer information can be the key to growth. Vision 2014: The evolving landscape of customer management from Experian Business Information Services

Gone are the days when news of a data breach was shocking. Today they have become all too common an occurrence.  One of the most concerning issues around breaches is that many consumers' digital identities are based on a single email address or username/password.With stolen identity data in hand, criminals can submit fraudulent mortgages, credit card applications, even create fake credit cards, in the names of thousands of unsuspecting victims. Regardless of how the data is used, one thing is certain: breaches pose serious dangers to consumers, retailers and financial institutions. The need for customer-friendly fraud management is stronger than ever. A single layer of protection is simply ineffective as criminals are more efficient than ever in obtaining consumer identification details and compromising simple access credentials. While mobile technologies and the Internet itself have enabled consumers to have anytime access to their financial data, these advances are the very means by which criminals perpetrate fraud.  And customer-friendly technologies and policies continue to outpace the controls and risk management. What controls does your organization have in place to ensure that a fraudster in Malaysia isn't using a legitimate identity and an anonymous proxy to submit credit card applications? Or to alert when a long-standing offline banking relationship suddenly enrolls online? The days and weeks following a breach are a time of heightened risk. Even after a breach has occurred, the risk can be managed.  In “Know Your Enemy”, a fraud prevention focused break out session at Experian’s 2014 Vision conference (#vision2014), Ori Eisen @orieisen and Matt Ehrlich @ehrlichmatters cover current trends and practices for taking on the growing industrialization of fraud.  Together with a risk executive from a leading bank, the team discusses several themes and emerging tactics, including: the cost of single channel fraud prevention strategies, the necessity of a layered security strategy that includes device and identity intelligence, and true real time, point of contact risk-scoring. Vision 2014: Know Your Enemy – a financial institution’s best practices for preventing the latest fraud attacks from Experian Business Information Services

For small business owners, the bumpy ride continues.  Not that things aren't getting better; they are.  Or at least, when you take a step back from the monthly assessments of small business optimism, and observe the trend lines over the last couple of years.  But It’s the up and down, uneven nature of the monthly reporting that gives you this picture of a “she loves me, she loves me not” world small business owners must be living in.  At least life isn't boring. From a lenders perspective, it may not be quite so erratic.  The larger small businesses are providing good opportunities for lenders to provide new financing.  Demand is growing, and that is a good thing.  In addition, new forms of financing are growing in popularity.  Alternative lenders are providing direct financing to small business owners, and providing competition for more traditional banks.  Credit cards are being embraced more and more by small business owners, and provide some nice fringe benefits to owners.  Extending payments, rewards programs, and just plain old convenience are among the benefits small business owners can enjoy by paying their vendors with a credit card.  Not a bad way to go! The increased use of small business cards is just one example of a growing trend spawned during the economy’s comeback from the “great recession”.  Lenders have better tools available to them to grow their small business portfolios, and also to manage them better.   Recent advances in technology and data availability (dare I say “big data”) are providing lenders opportunities for more cost-effective targeting of risk and opportunity.  The ability to cross-sell consumer clients who may also be small business owners is a lower cost way to identify solid prospects for commercial products, as well as a way to potentially reward customer loyalty.  Benchmarking is another trend that has been shown to provide lenders a tremendous amount of insight into how different segments of customers behave, and help to inform strategic policy. 50 002 trends-in_commercial_card_and_small_business_lending from Experian Business Information Services

In the early 1970’s a brilliant engineer/inventor/music lover designed a credit card sized electronic music player.  Early prototypes and models of this small music player received the accolades of “the most radical music system ever” from the audio industry.  Many of you may think I am talking about Steve Jobs – well I am not.  This inventor however was distracted, did not pay attention to the business and saw the technology get away from him.  And that is why today, Jobs and Apple’s 1.75 billion iPods are a household name and Kane Kramer is not. So the question for you today is…are you keeping your eye on the technology, trends, and market place that will make your commercial lending efforts successful and sustainable? In a CEB TowerGroup survey, bank executives clearly called out that maximizing credit applications with quality growth is the top priority for 2014. To be successful in achieving that growth commercial bankers will be focused in 2014 and beyond on these five key areas: (1) Rationalizing infrastructure, (2) Optimizing sourcing, (3) Centralizing risk management, (4) Enhancing liquidity management, and (5) Implementing commercial loan management solutions.  To back that claim, in the 2013 Sales Readiness Assessment, CEB TowerGroup found that banks that are taking these steps to lead in technology changes were seeing an increase of 8% in their top performing relationship managers, and a 13% increase overall. And while growth is critical, we cannot take our eye off the existing portfolio.  Best practices suggest that to make the most impact in 2014, institutions should in the next 90 days to take steps to look at their individual loans, but with multiple factors, e.g. duration, convexity, and yield.  But even more important banks should aggregate these views to a portfolio level to make sure that can optimize returns overall. So while we see that in commercial lending the 3-year CAGR is now 10.5% and looking stronger, banks need to focus and not be distracted and capitalize on these opportunities.  Invest and stay focused on the future! Vision 2014: The new world of commercial lending from Experian Business Information Services Tweet this! Not focusing on #innovation & change can cost you. Kramer designed IXI in the 70's.  But #apple gained with 1.7 B #ipod sold. #vision2014 Click to Tweet This At @ExperianVision and Joanne Pollitt from CEB Tower Group talking about #change in cmcl #banking for 2014.  Are you ready?  @ExperianVision  Click to Tweet This What is your #banks top #commercial #banking #initiative for 2014?? How can @Experian_DA_GCP and @Experian_US help you  #succeedandproceed  Click to Tweet This  

4000! Consumers view over 4000 ads per day. As a result they are overwhelmed with information and opt not to see what could be waiting for them. The best way to grab the consumer’s attention and CLOSE the sale is to target them with content directly related to their interests. This is not an easy task, but Experian can help lenders stay above the noise and drive relevant traffic to their websites. We can turn a site visit into a credit qualified lead and ultimately a high-quality booked account – cutting through the “junk” that drags down your portfolio’s performance. Are you sure you have a truly optimized digital prospecting strategy?  Do you have the data to drive both the targeted advertising for increased site traffic and to customize the credit offers that empower the consumer to complete an application? Experian has the data assets to help you tailor the entire online experience for the least amount of online friction. For example, your advertisements can be as customized as creating a multi-channel cross-device experience based on your own marketing history or you can optimize your current online advertising strategy using additional data elements to get the most out of your marketing dollars. Use marketing and credit data to stay relevant and generate the highest quality traffic. The consumer has come to the store – you still need to close the sale!  Experian’s ability to leverage data once the consumer has reached the site is the new frontline for developing a relationship with your customers.  By bringing credit data to the beginning of the conversation, before they have decided to apply, you can learn from your customer and educate them on their best option.   You can’t deny wanting to help your customers find the right products for them but also increase your ROI, and continue to maintain your risk modeling. Come see what Experian can do for you!  Learn how our data-driven solutions can help you create a tailored digital consumer experience to build customer loyalty and drive new loan growth. Vision 2014: Customer acquisitions in a changing digital landscape from Experian Business Information Services Tweet this! 90% of our media interactions are screen-based.  #digitalmarketing #vision  Click to Tweet We spend over 4 hours a day on average in front of screens of increasingly diverse sizes?  #digitalmarketing #vision2014  Click to Tweet Consumers choosing online & #mobile channels to engage, creating challenge in authenticated cross-selling #digitalmarketing #vision2014  Click to Tweet Deliver the right message to the right consumer about the right product – optimize your # digital strategy #digitalmarketing #vision2014  Click to Tweet Experian is only bureau able to offer targeted digital advertising capabilities and robust credit decisioning tools #vision2014  Click to Tweet

The amount of data being generated nowadays is staggering. In fact, according to one source, more data has been produced in the past two years than ever before. Certainly Experian has made it our business to understand all of this data and how to harness it. I’ve recently had the opportunity to consider the impact of data in Formula 1 Racing, the most prestigious and high-tech racing series on the planet. Experian is a sponsor of Williams Martini Racing, which is one of the “big four” teams in the sport and has produced 16 Formula One World Championship titles. In F1, information is used to provide innovation and engineering expertise that creates the world’s fastest and most powerful cars. One the most fascinating elements of the F1 experience is to see what happens in the Williams Martini garage during a race. A team of master technicians watch several monitors and track an overwhelming amount of real-time data during the race – from minute details about the car, to changing weather conditions, to information about all the other race cars. Then these highly trained racing engineers instantaneously analyze the data and provide it to the pit crew and the driver in order to make the best possible decisions to win. There is a parallel to what we’re doing at Experian and our Information Services business. A team like Williams Martini Racing consistently puts a competitive car on the track year after year because of its ability to analyze technical data and improve its chances of winning. This is exactly what Experian does for our clients. We constantly push the envelope by developing innovative applications to capture the value hidden within data. For over 30 years, we have harnessed the power of Big Data for our clients. We gather data and utilize analytics to produce winning business insights. We enable our clients to drive revenue, increase profitability and gain greater competitive advantages. It might not be as glamorous as an F1 race in Monte Carlo, but at Experian, we share the same motivations as Williams Martini Race to use data correctly in order to deliver winning results. At the end of the day, F1 racing is about maximum performance. At the end of OUR day, Experian is about bringing value to consumers and maximum performance for businesses.

Debt is often thought of as a scary word and many spend their lives trying to avoid it at all costs. Understanding what credit is, why you need it and how to build it can help make it less frightening and can actually put you in control. Debt doesn't have to be a four-letter word. To wrap up Financial Literacy Month, Experian released a study this week that takes an in depth look at debt and credit scores in the 20 largest cities across the U.S. and compares the numbers to where these cities were four years ago. The findings show that Detroit residents have the least amount of debt, while the residents of Dallas have the most. From a national perspective, debt has increased by 5 percent and in 19 of the 20 cities studied, average debt has increased, which actually signals a positive trend. How is that possible, you ask? Well, the analysis showed that with the increases, these large cities are actually managing the debt they have quite well, and that credit lending is opening up. REMEMBER: Credit is a tool that if managed correctly can be a positive – the key is not to misuse the credit you have. Take a look at the map below to see how these large cities fared, and visit www.livecreditsmart.com to read more about the study and how you can make better financial decisions and be more aware of where you stand from a credit perspective. In today’s changing economy, it’s more important than ever to take control of your credit and live credit smart no matter where you live. See the map below and view the news release for more information on this study.