Welcome to the Experian Thought Leadership Hub

As the credit card landscape evolves, understanding how consumers and businesses are adapting has never been more important.

Our second annual State of Credit Cards Report provides a timely update on key market dynamics and dives into an often-overlooked segment within credit card portfolios: business accounts.

Key takeaways:

• 30+ DPD delinquency rates remained above pre-pandemic levels in 2025.
• Fintechs continue to gain share in the credit card market, posting a 71% YoY increase in account originations.
• Many businesses use consumer credit cards to support business-related activity, making this segment easy for lenders to overlook.

Download Experian’s 2026 Future of Fraud Forecast to explore five fraud trends expected to have the biggest impact on businesses and consumers in the coming year, including: 

• Agentic AI and machine-to-machine fraud 
• Deepfake-driven employment fraud 
• Smart home device exploitation 
• Website cloning and emotionally intelligent fraud bots

The Regional Economic Health Tracker examines consumer health across the four U.S. census regions. It highlights how regional dynamics, from data center growth to housing costs and credit conditions, are shaping household finances today.

• Regional income, spending, and cost-of-living trends
  
• Housing market performance and price changes
  
• Consumer stress and 30+ DPD balances by product

As market conditions shift, collections success depends on continuous, high-quality consumer data. This checklist highlights how always-on collections intelligence can help debt buyers and agencies:

• Stay ahead of consumer behavior shifts
• Adjust strategies quickly
• Concentrate collections efforts where it counts

ITIN holders are active, responsible participants in the U.S. credit economy — yet many remain overlooked by traditional lending models.

Our white paper takes a closer look at this financially active and resilient population, revealing key insights into their credit performance and long-term growth potential.

Some findings include:

• Most ITIN holders are concentrated in states that represent a large share of the U.S. economy: California, Texas and New York.
• 76.9% of ITIN holders remained current on trades after 12 months, a rate 15% higher than SSN consumers.
• ITIN holders maintain a lower debt-to-income ratio (25%) than SSN consumers.

Read the full white paper for more insights.

This summary outlines important research findings that help lenders drive a more inclusive environment for customers, while mitigating risk.

A few takeaways:

• Understanding the profiles of who’s more prone to exclusion informs risk management.
• Machine learning techniques can also be deployed to help detect economic interaction effects or shifts.
• Attributes like education level, occupation or rent/utilities payment history have predictive power in credit outcomes.

Gain actionable insights from Experian’s 2026 State of the U.S. Housing Market Report:

• Mortgage market shifts and evolving borrower behaviors
• Affordability pressures and what they mean for homeowners
• Home equity as a key growth lever for lenders
• Macroeconomic trends impacting housing demand and credit

Join Ashley Knight, Experian’s SVP of Product Management, and Haiyan Huang, Prosper’s Chief Credit Officer, to discover how:

• Alternative finance data is redefining how to verify and connect identities.
• Email and phone intelligence is unlocking new levels of precision in credit marketing.
• Open banking insights are becoming increasingly critical for financial inclusion and mitigating risk.

Despite tariff headwinds in 2025, the U.S. economy exceeded expectations and is positioned for continued growth. Improving credit dynamics point to a stronger lending environment in 2026.

• Solid economic momentum heading into the new year
• Improving lending standards and rising credit demand
• Stable delinquency trends support healthier credit conditions