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Here are some ways we have supported and celebrated our Black community recently: Inaugural #IYKYK Hackathon Brings Fresh Solutions to Financial Inclusion for Future Generations At our North American headquarters, a group of young scholars took the lead on finding solutions. Four teams representing Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) visited our campus and shared their creativity and personal stories with us in the finale of the inaugural #IYKYK Hackathon. Experian Honors Martin Luther King, Jr. with Region-wide Day of Service We’re proud that on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, our teammates across Experian North America participated in volunteer opportunities in-person and virtually to address needs in their communities. To further our support of Dr. King’s mission, Experian also made a donation to the King Center for Non-violent Social Change. HOPE Financial Wellness Index We launched the HOPE Financial Wellness Index with Operation HOPE to help identify communities in most need of financial education and develop programming to help them build the futures they want. Experian Launches Global Funding Program to Help Improve Financial Health for Communities Worldwide Experian has launched the global United for Financial Health project to empower people to improve their financial health through education and action. Our partnerships with non-profit organizations across the globe to deliver tools and resources to help underserved communities: National Urban League Experian supports the National Urban League Young Professionalsand those enrolled in one of 12 Urban League Entrepreneurship Centers with free access to their Experian consumer credit report and FICO® Score, along with the ability to potentially increase their credit scores instantly with Experian Boost™. Experian also offers small business tools, services, and educational content. The Home Preservation Grant has helped families in Atlanta and Chicago who were at risk of losing their homes because of a COVID-hardship keep their homes NAACP We launched a partnership with the NAACP Empowerment Program. The Home Preservation Grant provided funding assistance to select Atlantans who were at risk of losing their homes because of a COVID-19-related hardship. 100 Black Men of Greater Washington, D.C. We launched a broad financial health initiative to assist multiple Black communities suffering COVID-19-related hardship. HomeFree USA We launched the Center for Financial Advancement® (CFA) Credit Academy. CFA is a key initiative of HomeFree-USA, and we’ve been partnering with the organization to provide complementary training to their housing counselors on financial and credit education information and resources. This new six-month program is for 250 scholars from 14 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Also check out these Experian podcast episodes featuring Black voices: Diversity in STEM: What Is It and Why It Matters w/ Serena King In this #DataTalk, we chat with Serena King, Software Engineer at Altair, about the importance of diversity in the STEM field, ways companies can create an inclusive environment for employees, and what it is like being a Black woman in a predominantly white field. Empowering Black Founders & Startups with Investments & Access w/ Justin Dawkins In this #DataTalk, we chat with Justin Dawkins, Managing Partner at Collab Capital about ways organizations can help support Black startups and entrepreneurs. Building Racial Equity in the Workplace w/ Nicole Blake Johnson In this #DataTalk, we chat with Nicole Johnson, Managing Editor at GovLoop, about ways tech leaders can create space at work to have honest conversations about race. Inclusion, Innovation & Making an Impact in Tech w/ Sherrell Dorsey In this #DataTalk, we chat with Sherrell Dorsey about her love of data, technology and passion for improving inclusion and diversity in tech.

A little more than a year removed from the beginning of the pandemic, and we’re still seeing many of the most vulnerable and underserved communities struggling to find a stable financial foothold. These are consumers with little to no credit history and are often underrepresented in the network of bank branches and sometimes less familiar with what’s available to them in the consumer credit system. The pandemic has taken a toll on the fabric of our financial ecosystem, and we need to help these consumers get back on their feet. That’s one of the reasons we’ve partnered with the 100 Black Men of Greater Washington, D.C. Together, we’re launching a broad financial health initiative to assist multiple African American communities suffering COVID-19-related hardship. But the partnership is just one of the ways Experian is assisting marginalized and underserved communities. Addressing Financial Inclusion Experian is deeply committed to helping marginalized and low-income communities access the financial resources they need to live. That’s why we’re working to ensure we find ways to help underserved consumers gain access to fair and affordable credit by assisting them in building their credit profiles. We view ourselves as “The Consumers’ Bureau,” and it’s our commensurate responsibility to do everything we can to drive financial inclusion. We are working side-by-side with lenders, credit scoring companies and consumers to eliminate credit invisibility and improve financial equity. Our teams at Experian, diverse as they are, feel passionate about this very important mission. We understand that a big part of the solution relies on bringing new sources of data into our credit files, so that credit scores reflect all of a consumers’ relevant financial behavior. We strongly believe that these new sources of data will augment and thereby enhance our current credit data as an effective means for lenders’ assessment of a consumer’s financial situation. There’s a percentage of the population—on average, it’s 17% of Americans, measured by FICO—who are excluded from the credit economy because they simply lack a credit history. To that end, we’ve been a pioneer in using rental, utilities and telecom payment data to help broaden credit access for consumers. Boosting 6 Million In fact, more than two years ago, we created Experian Boost, which was a first-of-its-kind service designed to help consumers instantly improve their FICO® Score by giving them credit for on-time utility, telecom and streaming service payments. All of those elements are conceived to be part of people’s credit scores, however utility and cell phone providers have not collaborated to report their data to all credit bureaus. With Experian Boost, we empower consumers to report the data themselves, and more importantly, 70% of consumers benefit from doing so, seeing an uplift in their credit score. And to date, more than 6 million consumers have used Experian Boost with over 50 million cumulative points added to FICO Scores across the US. Our Commitment to Financial Health But our commitment doesn’t end there. Consumer credit education and best practices are key to setting marginalized consumers up for financial success. Through Experian’s United for Financial Health initiative—we’re empowering vulnerable people and communities to improve their financial wellbeing through that very belief. In addition to our partnership with the 100 Black Men of Greater Washington, D.C., we’re working closely with Operation HOPE, Black Girl Ventures, and NAACP Empowerment Programs, to help disenfranchised groups improve their credit standing, provide entrepreneurial education for Black and Brown women entrepreneurs, and offer grants to help homeowners at risk of losing their homes In addition to our consumer credit education initiatives with our partners, we continually push credit education materials and programming through our own social media channels and community outreach efforts. In honor of Financial Literacy Month, we’re hosting a #CreditChat on Wednesday, April 28 at 3 p.m. ET, entitled, Closing the Financial Literacy Gap in Underserved Communities.   We believe helping underserved communities better understand the credit ecosystem and equipping them with the tools and knowledge to improve their credit standing, are mission critical to a healthier financial life. And we’re hopeful this #CreditChat discussion is another step forward in that journey. We won’t rest until the job’s done. We’ll continue to innovate and find new ways to use data in the credit scoring process, and work arm-in-arm with consumers and lenders to improve financial access. Through our investments in data and advanced analytics, we’ll continue to help lenders identify consumers who are excluded from the credit ecosystem, but who can fulfill their financial obligations and pay responsibly. We want to empower consumers to take control of their financial lives, and will continue to take strides to do so.

Listen (or download) the podcast: Every week, we talk about important data and analytics topics with data science leaders from around the world.  You can subscribe to the DataTalk podcast on iTunes,  Google Play, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and Spotify. DataTalk features data science leaders at MIT, Caltech, United Nations, Gartner, Twitter, Salesforce, Amazon, UBER, IBM, LinkedIn, Spotify, Dow Jones, and dozens of other startups and top data companies. In this week's #DataTalk, we chat with Eric Haller, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Identity, Fraud & DataLabs at Experian, about the race to digital identification. We talk about how Eric’s role has evolved at Experian, what Experian is doing to mitigate fraud and identity theft for consumers, and the meaning of digital identification. Eric also discusses the digital shift every industry is facing amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the future of digital identification, and recent innovations in deepfake technology. Video Highlights from the Conversation: What Experian is Doing to Mitigate Fraud and Identity Theft Deepfake A.I. Technology Defining Digital Identification COVID-19 and the Digital Shift  The Future of Digital Identification and Deepfake A.I. This show is hosted by Destiny White and Mike Delgado. Please reach out with suggestions for future topics or guests. You can also catch the full video interview here. About Eric Haller Eric Haller is the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Identity, Fraud & DataLabs at Experian. Eric also serves on the Columbia University SPS Board of Overseers. About Experian DataLabs Experian DataLabs helps businesses solve strategic marketing and risk-management problems through an advanced data analysis process and research and development. Focused on innovating new data sources with an emphasis on financial services, telecommunications, and healthcare, Experian DataLabs is staffed with a multidisciplinary group of data scientists with PhDs and applied research practitioners with expertise in advanced analytics and machine learning, as well as other advanced statistical methods. Experts in applying cutting-edge data science to real-world business situations, DataLabs utilizes Experian’s vast data assets and is supported by Experian’s global network and resources. Employing deep domain expertise and industry knowledge reduces client exposure during the development process. Nearly a petabyte of data storage is provisioned by Experian in the United States to support research and development activities. The environment allows for multiple Big Data projects to occur simultaneously.

During a year of the pivot, Experian North America remained focused on our purpose: Creating a Better Tomorrow. It’s not just a marketing tag line. It’s the lens through which we care for our employees, and how they in turn fuel innovations to serve our communities when they need help the most. That’s why this year’s 31 ranking in the Fortune "100 Best Companies to Work For" is so incredibly meaningful. For this year’s national award, two elements were considered: confidential employee feedback and the programs companies created to support people and communities in response to COVID-19. The employee surveys were distributed last summer, in the thick of pandemic restrictions and lockdowns. All around, we saw improvement: 50 percent of employees responded to the surveys (compared to 43 percent the year before), and 92 percent of employees attest that Experian is a Great Company to Work For (compared to 86 percent the year before). We’ve worked hard to build an employee culture over the past several years that continuously strives for inclusion and equity. This foundation became instrumental to how we navigated the past twelve months. Our employee resource groups took the lead to support our colleagues with the creation of a dynamic mental health and well-being guide, producing programs that brought awareness and support during social unrest and the rise in racism, and arranging annual celebrations to provide a touch of “normalcy.” Through a year that also included natural disasters such as the arctic blast, wildfires, storms and flooding, we have been there for each other. From free credit reports for consumers and small businesses, to products and services that enable governments, healthcare providers and nonprofits to prepare for and serve populations in crisis, Experian North America’s workforce leveraged diversity of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences to help vulnerable populations in crisis from COVID-19. Even through lockdowns and restrictions, employees logged 18,000 volunteer hours to increase financial inclusivity, support frontline healthcare workers, honor the nation’s military and veterans, and fight hunger. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation gave Experian North America a perfect score in its Corporate Equality Index for the third year in a row, and the company earned its recertification as a Great Place to Work. It has been named one of the top 10 Fortune’s Best Workplaces in Financial Services and Insurance, and a Comparably Top 50 company for Best Outlook 2021. Experian Costa Rica, part of our North America region, also earned Great Place to Work honors for the third year in a row. Our purpose runs deep. We put our people at the heart of how we run our business and it guides how we serve our consumers, clients and each other. We will continue this momentum of the 2021 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For by helping to drive financial inclusion and equity, growing our business through innovation, and creating opportunities for our coworkers to thrive and build meaningful careers.  

Listen to (or download) the podcast here: Every week, we talk about important data and analytics topics with data science leaders from around the world on Facebook Live.  You can subscribe to the DataTalk podcast on iTunes,  Google Play, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and Spotify. DataTalk features data science leaders at MIT, Caltech, United Nations, Gartner, Twitter, Salesforce, Amazon, UBER, IBM, LinkedIn, Spotify, Dow Jones and dozens of other startups and top data companies. In this week’s #DataTalk, we chat with Amy Eddins Hughes, Sr. Director of Sales Enablement at Experian, about automotive data and auto industry trends. Amy discusses some of the economic factors impacting new auto registrations and vehicle sales during COVID-19. She also shares about how marketers and dealers can use Experian's interactive auto data dashboard to quickly see auto data and trends across the United States. Video Highlights from the Conversation: Experian's Auto Market Dashboard Auto Market Trends in 2021 Economic Factors Impacting Auto Sales Finance Trends in Auto Market Impact of Credit Scores by State on Vehicle Sales Auto Registration Trends During COVID-19 You can also catch the full video interview here. About Amy Eddins Hughes Drawing upon her years of experience in advertising research for national magazine publisher Time Inc. and Sinclair Broadcast Group, Amy Hughes has a passion for advancing the skill set of automotive marketers by helping them apply the latest enhancements in technology to their dealerships’ monthly advertising spend. Currently at Experian, Amy collaborates with dealers to transform their marketing operations through data. Previously, Amy was responsible for driving dealer sales and business development relationships for String Automotive and has been consulting with dealers on media and advertising for 15+ years. Check out more DataTalk videos and podcasts.  

As consumer demand for the digital channel continues to increase at an exceptional rate it has created an opportunity for businesses to serve the growing ranks of connected consumers. The most important thing is for businesses to ensure they are putting the consumer at the heart of the relationship. Experian has been studying insights related to consumer behavior and business strategy throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. For the third wave of our Global Insights Report we surveyed 3,000 consumers and 900 businesses across the globe in January. We observed not only consumer demand for the digital channel increasing but that fact that these trends are persisting. We believe that what started as necessity has turned into a preference. According to the report, 38% of consumers expect to increase their online activity in the next 12 months. Furthering our belief that the preference for digital transactions persists, 60% of consumers are using a universal mobile wallet to make digital payments. We also found that the two top activities among consumers online are personal banking (58%) and ordering groceries and takeout food (56%). The report also shows that security remains at the top of consumers’ minds when they are transacting online. 55%of consumers say security is the most important factor in their digital experience – this is highest in the UK (65%), followed by Japan (64%). All in all, the new research confirms that this shift to online activity, which continues to increase with no indications of slowing down, is a contributing factor to consumers’ growing appetite for digital. In this regard, we found that businesses have taken notice and are investing more resources around the digital experience. In fact, 9 in 10 businesses have a strategy in place related to the digital customer journey. 47% of businesses have put this strategy into place since Covid-19. In addition, more than a third of businesses are increasing staff or support for digital operations and experience. Fraud is the biggest challenge among businesses. However, 55% of businesses plan to increase fraud management budgets. As we move towards a post-pandemic era, and more consumers start to prefer banking and shopping online, a digital channel strategy simply isn’t enough. There needs to be a re-imagined customer journey that connects identity, preferences, products, and service. And data and technology have the power to help transform your customer relationships.  

How we shop, how we bank and how we access healthcare — it’s all racing to digital and being mostly consumed at home. It’s the evolution of the “anytime, anywhere, anyone, anything” promise that the Internet made available to us in the 1990s. However, in order to deliver on that promise, we need to be able to reduce the chances of fraud by identifying people no matter where they are or what device they are using. The rise of digital has made being able to identify an individual even more critical. According to a recent Global Insights Report from Experian, there has been a 20 percent increase overall in consumer online transaction activities and 60 percent of consumers have higher expectations of their digital experience than before Covid-19. The challenge companies are currently facing is how to digitally identify individuals while maintaining a positive consumer experience.  They need to rely on new technologies including data, biometrics, identity graphs and AI. When it works right, our experiences are more convenient, safer and it creates time for us to focus on other aspects of our lives. At Experian, we are committed to leading the race to digital identity. We use our more than 40 years of experience with success in matching, managing, and protecting identities and personal data combined with today’s most advanced technologies, including AI and machine learning to confirm the identity of an individual. Specifically, Experian is an identity leader in the following areas that impact our society on a daily basis: Fraud Prevention Being able to spot the good guys from the fraudsters is strictly dependent on establishing identity. At the most basic level, we need to be able to verify an individual as a real person and authenticate that they are who they say are. Businesses also need to ensure that the extra secure measures added in order to prove someone’s identity don’t cause too much friction. Today’s consumers are looking for both a convenient and safe experience. In fact, according to our 2020 Global Identity & Fraud Report, 74 percent of consumers said security was their top priority in their online experience, with convenience following closely behind. Most recently, Experian has focused on allowing businesses to reduce both fraud and friction as the world migrates towards a touchless society. Connecting with Consumers Identity is the foundation of the marketing ecosystem. It enables marketers to deliver relevant messages to customers across their most preferred digital channels. But with consumers jumping from device-to-device throughout the day, hundreds of digital touchpoints are created, and connecting these together to build a digital identity can prove challenging. Add to that, the deprecation of third-party cookies, disparate data sources and walled gardens, digital identity can feel like an uphill battle.  Experian is committed to helping marketers address the digital identity challenge, connecting offline and digital identifiers into one single customer view. This will help marketers gain a clearer view of their customers across the buying journey and seamlessly deliver relevant content across all digital devices. Healthcare More than half of all deaths that are attributed to medical errors are due to identification mistakes. Despite some giant technological advances in recent years in patient management, achieving accurate and complete patient records remains a major challenge for the U.S. healthcare industry. It’s estimated that around 70 percent of patient data held in electronic health records is incomplete or inaccurate, and up to half of all patient records may not be linked correctly. Unreliable patient data presents some huge problems for health systems, from flawed diagnoses and treatment errors to unreliable analytics and billing mistakes. As patient portals become the new “digital front door” to access care services and manage things like scheduling and payments, and telehealth gains traction as a preferred care modality, fraudulent activity in healthcare will accelerate to an all-time high. Experian helps with healthcare’s largest challenges, including duplicate medical records, mistaken patient identities, pharmaceutical abuse and associated rising costs for patients and providers. We are committed to the industry-wide adoption of Universal Patient Identifiers on the part of providers, pharmacies, payers and other stakeholders in order to improve patient safety and improve industry standards. Combating Synthetic Identities Synthetic identity fraud, where criminals combine real and fake information to create fake identities, is the fastest growing financial crime in the United States. A critical step for lenders to protect their portfolios and manage risk is confirming whether a consumer who is applying for credit is real or not. The earlier in the process this is done, the better. Experian’s fraud prevention solutions, such as Sure Profile, help lenders differentiate between real people and potentially risky applicants, so lenders can confidently increase application approvals with less risk. Businesses are faced with more competition than ever before and consumer behavior is shifting at an unprecedent pace. Being able to identify an individual whether online or offline is critical in today’s environment. Businesses that don’t embrace technology in order to keep up with the changing needs of consumers will be left behind in the race to digital identity.  

There hasn’t been many world events that have occurred during my 25+ year career that have had such an impact on cybersecurity as the pandemic. As I reflect on the approximate one year mark since we first heard about COVID-19, it’s truly been one for the record books. This is not relative to numbers such as the amount of data breaches that have been caused by the pandemic, but more so because of the long term ramifications. The pandemic opened up many new cyber scams and threat vectors as well as more vulnerable targets due to rapid and – at times – rushed changes organizations had to undertake in order to respond. A good cyber review of 2020 can be found here. Now we are at a tipping point with societal and operational changes companies and cybersecurity professionals will need to grapple with for a long time. I addressed how some of these will affect 2021 in my annual Data Breach Industry Forecast. As we forge ahead, there are two key areas I see as major security concerns with long-term impact: Remote working is here to stay There is no turning back in how, and more importantly, where we do business. What that means is a larger workforce working from home, which spurs a number of concerns and vulnerabilities from a security standpoint. Businesses now have a much broader threat landscape to protect. Not only that, but families need to tighten their security hygiene as well for their personal devices since criminals know we are spending more time at home using these tools. I predict that operationally there will be new strategies to protect systems and a rethinking of best practices in addition to a flurry of new protection software and other technologies to better protect this at-home frontier. Companies will also need to create new trainings for its employees and find better defenses for social networking attacks like spear phishing. Healthcare will never be the same That line is an understatement. Unfortunately, cybercriminals will not take pity and leave the embattled industry alone. Medical information is very lucrative and thieves will continue to take advantage of healthcare organizations’ focus on the pandemic. But they must address security, especially with advancements here to stay such as telehealth. In fact, I envision that operationally we’ll see more third party data breaches as more providers engage outside suppliers for their digital offerings. Also, with increased digital visits there could be more patients visiting smaller clinics or diagnostic testing centers for further evaluations or tests, which opens up more roads where patients’ information is flowing back and forth. Organizations will need to shore up third party security protocols and expectations to try to prevent this type of data breach. We are only at the beginning of this journey to overcome unexpected challenges and manage new ways of conducting business. For more commentary and updates on the cyber-demic, follow my LinkedIn monthly digest.

Given the many challenges presented over the last 12 months, it’s extremely satisfying to have retained our status and I  couldn’t be prouder of this achievement. Being certified as a Top Employer showcases our dedication to a better world of work, which has been exhibited through our excellent HR policies and people practices. It’s been a year like no other, and the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, has been a real test of our business resilience.  Hugely challenging for many individuals.  I’m really proud of the support we have put in place, helping our people to reach their full potential and remaining true to our values and purpose. We have been determined to ensure that the diverse needs within our workforce are accommodated. Our ability to exercise progressive policies, such as greater flexibility and enhanced wellbeing offerings, has been essential for our people to adapt to a very different way of working successfully.  We’ve provided a wide range of resources, including employee assistance programmes, mindfulness training and collaborative technology tooling, to  ensure that our people have the relevant support to stay mentally well. But it is our people that have made this recognition possible. Despite our new working environments, they have been instrumental in ensuring our culture continues to thrive. I have heard so many great examples of how teams stay connected and support each other – from video walks and online games to competitions and virtual cocktail hours. This award demonstrates that we are clearly on the right path, but we won’t stop here. We’re always looking for new ways to do things and to improve as a business. By listening to our people and actively encouraging new ideas, we can continue to develop Experian as a great place to work. To find out more about the Top Employer certification, click here.