Tag: digital technology

This article was updated on March 12, 2024. The number of decisions that a business must make in the marketing space is on the rise. Which audience to target, what is the best method of communication, which marketing campaign should they receive? To stay ahead, a growing number of businesses are embracing artificial intelligence (AI) analytics, machine learning, and mathematical optimization in their decisioning models and strategies. What is an optimization model? While machine learning models provide predictive insights, it’s the mathematical optimization models that provide actionable insights that drive decisioning. Optimization models factor in multiple constraints and goals to leave you with the next best steps. Each step in the optimization process can significantly improve the overall impact of your marketing outreach — for both you and your customers. Using a mathematical optimization software, you can enhance your targeting, increase response rates, lower cost per acquisition, and drive engagement. Better engagement can lead to stronger business performance and profitability. Here are a few key areas where machine learning and optimization modeling can help increase your return on investment (ROI): Prospecting: Advanced analytics and optimization can be used to better identify individuals who meet your credit criteria and are most likely to respond to your offers. Taking this customer-focused approach, you can provide the most relevant marketing messages to customers at the right time and place. Cross-sell and upsell: The same optimized targeting can be applied to increase profitability with your existing customer base in cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. Gain insights into the best offer to send to each customer, the best time to send it, and which channel the customer will respond best to. Additionally, implement logic that maintains your customer contact protocols. Retention: Employing optimization modeling in the retention stage helps you make quicker decisions in a competitive environment. Instantly identify triggers that warrant a retention offer and determine the likelihood of the customer responding to different offers. LEARN MORE: eBook: Debunking the top 5 myths about optimization Gaining insight and strengthening decisions with our solutions Experian’s suite of advanced analytics solutions, including our optimization software, can help improve your marketing strategies. Use our ROI calculator to get a personalized estimate of how optimization can lift your campaigns without additional marketing spend. Start by inputting your organization’s details below. initIframe('62e81cb25d4dbf17c7dfea55'); Learn more about how optimization modeling can help you achieve your marketing and growth goals. Learn more  

This article was updated on February 23, 2024. First impressions are always important – whether it’s for a job interview, a first date or when pitching a client. The same goes for financial services onboarding as it’s an opportunity for organizations to foster lifetime loyalty with customers. As a result, financial institutions are on the hunt now more than ever for frictionless online identity verification methods to validate genuine customers and maintain positive experiences during the online onboarding process. In a predominantly digital-first world, financial companies are increasingly focused on the customer experience and creating the most seamless online onboarding process. However, according to Experian’s 2023 Identity and Fraud Report, more than half of U.S. consumers considered dropping out during account opening due to friction and a less-than positive experience. And as technology continues to advance, digital financial services onboarding, not surprisingly, increases the demand for fraud protection and authentication methods – namely with digital identity (ID) verification processes. According to Experian’s report, 64% of consumers are very or somewhat concerned with online security, with identity theft being their top concern. So how can financial institutions guarantee a frictionless online onboarding experience while executing proper authentication methods and maintaining security and fraud detection? The answer? While a “frictionless” experience can seem like a bit of a unicorn, there are some ways to get close: Utilizing better data - Digital devices offer an extensive amount of data that’s useful in determining risk. Characteristics that allow the identification of a specific device, the behaviors associated with the device and information about a device’s owner can be captured without adding friction for the user. Analytics – Once the data is collected, advanced analytics uses information based on behavioral data, digital intelligence, phone intelligence and email intelligence to analyze for risk. While there’s friction in the initial ask for the input data, the risk prediction improves with more data. Document verification and biometric identity verification – Real-time document verification used in conjunction with facial biometrics, behavioral biometrics and other physical characteristics allows for rapid onboarding and helps to maintain a low friction customer journey. Financial institutions can utilize document verification to replace manual long-form applications for rapid onboarding and immediately verify new data at the point of entry. Using their mobile phones, consumers can photograph and upload identity documents to pre-fill applications. Document authenticity can be verified in real-time. Biometrics, including facial, behavioral, or other physical characteristics (like fingerprints), are low-touch methods of customer authentication that can be used synchronously with document verification. Optimize your financial services onboarding process Experian understands how critical identity management and fraud protection is when it comes to the online onboarding process and identity verification. That’s why we created layered digital identity verification and risk segmentation solutions to help legitimize your customers with confidence while improving the customer experience. Our identity verification solutions use advanced technology and capabilities to correctly identify and verify real customers while mitigating fraud and maintaining frictionless customer experiences. Learn more

In today’s age, where speed and convenience are paramount, lenders must transform their digital income verification experience to meet customer expectations. Leveraging the benefits of instant verification is crucial to delivering a seamless experience. However, there are situations where instant verification may not be available or unable to verify customers. This is where the value of incorporating user-permissioned verification into your workflow becomes evident.   Let’s explore the advantages of using a combination of instant and permissioned verification and how they can synergistically enhance coverage, reduce costs, improve efficiency, and deliver an exceptional customer experience.  Instant verification: The epitome of efficiency and experience  Instant verification technology enables lenders to access real-time customer data, making it the pinnacle of verification efficiency. Its ability to deliver immediate insights facilitates quick decision-making, ensuring a seamless and frictionless experience for lenders and customers. There are several benefits to streamlining your verification process, including:   Speed and efficiency: Eliminate the time-consuming process of manually gathering and analyzing data to expedite loan approvals and reduce customer waiting times.  Enhanced user experience: With real-time results, customers can complete their applications quickly and effortlessly, leading to increased satisfaction and higher conversion rates.  Reduced risk: Assess applicant information promptly, maintaining the security and integrity of lending processes.  Permissioned verification: Expanding coverage and engaging customers  While instant verification technology offers numerous advantages, it may not always be available or suitable for every customer. This is where permissioned verification plays a vital role. By integrating permissioned verification into the verification workflow, lenders can expand coverage and keep customers engaged in a digital channel, reducing abandonment rates. The benefits of leveraging permissioned verification include:  Convenience and speed: By granting permissioned access, customers avoid the hassle of uploading or submitting documents manually. This saves time and effort, resulting in a faster verification process.  Increased coverage and reduced abandonment: Permissioned verification ensures a higher coverage rate by minimizing the potential for customer abandonment during the application process. Since the information is retrieved seamlessly, customers are more likely to complete the application without frustration.  Privacy and control: Customers retain control over their data by explicitly granting permission for access. This enhances transparency and empowers individuals to manage their financial information securely.  Creating a verification "waterfall" for optimal results  To harness the combined power of instant and permissioned verification, lenders can establish a verification "waterfall" approach. This approach involves a cascading verification process where instant verification is the first step, followed by permissioned verification if instant verification is not available or unable to verify the customer.                                              Example of Experian Verify’s automated verification waterfall.  There are numerous advantages to adopting a “waterfall” approach, including:   Cost efficiency: Lenders who prioritize instant verification save on operational costs associated with manual verification processes. The seamless transition to permissioned verification reduces the need for manual intervention, minimizing expenses and improving efficiency.  Improved verification success rate: A verification waterfall ensures that alternative verification methods are readily available if the initial instant verification is unsuccessful. This increases the overall success rate of verifying customer data and reduces the likelihood of losing potential borrowers.  Enhanced customer experience: The combination of instant and permissioned verification creates a streamlined and frictionless customer experience. Customers can progress seamlessly through the verification process, reducing frustration and increasing satisfaction levels.  Propelling your business forward  In the dynamic landscape of lending, a combination of instant and permissioned verification technologies provides significant value to lenders and customers. While instant verification delivers unparalleled efficiency and experience, incorporating permissioned verification ensures expanded coverage, reduced abandonment rates, and a seamless digital journey for customers. By implementing a verification "waterfall" approach, lenders can optimize verification processes, reduce costs, improve efficiency, and ultimately deliver an exceptional customer experience.  Learn more about our solutions The advantages of instant and permissioned verification *This article leverages/includes content created by an AI language model and is intended to provide general information.

Investing in a strong customer acquisition strategy is critical to attracting leads and converting them into high-value customers. In this blog post, we’ll be focusing on one of the first stages of the customer acquisition process: the application stage. Challenges with online customer application processes When it comes to the customer application stage, speed, ease, and convenience are no longer nice-to-haves — they are musts. But various challenges exist for lenders and consumers in terms of online credit or account application processes, including: Limited digital capabilities. Consumers have grown more reliant on digital channels, with 52% preferring to use digital banking options over banking at branches. That said, financial institutions should prioritize the digital customer experience or risk falling behind the competition. The length of applications. Whether it’s a physical or digital application, requiring consumers to provide a substantial amount of information about themselves and their past can be frustrating. In fact, 67% of consumers will abandon an application if they experience complications. Potential human error. Because longer, drawn-out applications require various steps and data inputs, consumers may leave fields blank or make errors along the way. This can create more friction and delays as consumers may potentially be driven offline and into branches to get their applications sorted out. Improve the speed and accuracy of online credit applications Given that consumers are more likely to abandon their applications if their experience is friction-filled, financial institutions will need an automated, data-driven solution to simplify and streamline the online form completion process. Some of the benefits of leveraging an automated solution include: Improved customer experiences. Shortening time-to-value starts with faster decisioning. By using accurate consumer data and automation to prefill parts of the online credit application, you can reduce the amount of information applicants are required to enter, leading to lower abandonment rates, less potential for manual error, and enhanced user experiences. Fraud prevention. Safeguarding consumer information throughout the credit application process is crucial. By leveraging intelligent identity verification solutions, you can securely and compliantly identify consumer identities while ensuring data isn’t released in risky situations. Then by using identity management solutions, you can gain a connected, validated customer view, resulting in minimized end-user friction. Faster approvals. With automated data prefill and identity verification, you can process applications more efficiently, leading to faster approvals and increased conversions. Choosing the right partner Experian can help optimize your customer application process, making it faster, more efficient, and less error prone. This way, you can win more customers and improve digital experiences. Learn more about Experian’s customer acquisition solutions.

Financial institutions have long been on the cutting edge of technology trends, and it continues to be true as we look at artificial intelligence and machine learning. Large analytics teams are using models to solve for lending decisions, account management, investments, and more. However, unlike other industries taking advantage of modeling, financial institutions have the added complexity of regulation and transparency requirements to ensure fairness and explainability. That means institutions need highly sophisticated model operations and a highly skilled workforce to ensure that decisions are accurate and accountability is maintained. According to new research from Experian, we see that while financial institutions plan to use or are using models for a wide range of use cases, there is a range of ModelOps maturity across the industry. Just under half of financial institutions are in the early stages of model building, where projects are more ad-hoc in nature and experimental. Only a quarter of institutions seem to be more mature, where processes are well defined and models can be developed in a reliable timeframe. With more than two-thirds of lenders saying that ModelOps will play a key role in shaping the industry over the next five years, the race to maturity is critical. One of the biggest challenges we see in the space is that it takes too long for models to make it into production. On average, financial institutions estimate that the end-to-end process for creating a new model for credit decisioning takes an average of 15 months. Organizations need to accelerate model velocity, meaning the time that it takes to get a model into production and generating value, to take advantage of this powerful technology. Having the right technology, the right talent, and the right data at the right time continue to drag down operational speed and tracking of models after they are in production. For more information on Experian’s recent study, download the new report ‘Accelerating Model Velocity in Financial Institutions’. We are also hosting an upcoming webinar with tips on how to tackle some of the biggest model development and deployment challenges. You can register for the webinar here.

This article was updated on August 9, 2023. Debt collections can be frustrating — for both consumers and lenders alike. Coupled with ever-changing market conditions and evolving consumer expectations for their digital experience, lending institutions and collections agencies must develop the right collections strategies to reduce costs and maximize recovery rates. How can they do this? By following the three Cs — communication, choice and control. Communication To increase response rates and successfully retrieve payments, lenders must cater to consumers’ preferences for communication, or more specifically, make the right type of contact at the right time. With debt collection predictive analytics, you can gain a more holistic view of consumers and further insight into their behavioral and contact channel preferences. This way, you can better assess an individual's propensity to pay, determine the best way and time to reach them and develop more personalized treatment strategies. Control Debt collection solutions that provide a more comprehensive customer view can also give individuals greater control as they’re able to engage with collectors via a channel that may be easier or more comfortable for them than a phone call, such as email, text or chatbots. Providing consumers with various options is especially important as 81% think more highly of brands who offer multiple digital touchpoints. To further improve your methods of communication, consider streamlining monotonous processes with collection optimization. By automating repetitive tasks and outreach, you can reduce errors and free up your agents’ time to focus on accounts that need more attention, creating a customer-centric collections experience. Choice Ultimately, the success of collections initiatives relies heavily on how well collection practices are accepted and adopted by the end user. Consumers want to make informed decisions and want to be offered choices – therefore giving them more control in a decision-making process and with their finances. “Consumers have made a monumental shift to digital. To enhance your collections performance, it is critical to engage consumers in the method and channel of their choosing,” said Paul Desaulniers, Head of Scoring, Alternative Data and Collections at Experian. Lending institutions and third-party collection agencies that are able to communicate across all consumer channels will see more success in their collections strategies. Are your debt collection tactics and strategies up-to-par? READ: Strengthening Your Debt Collection Strategy Improve your collections strategy By catering to consumers’ communication preferences, giving them control and offering them choices, financial institutions and collections agencies can more effectively reach their customer base, with less effort. It’s a win-win for all. Experian offers various debt management and collections systems that can help you optimize processes, reduce costs and increase recovery rates. To get started, visit us today. Learn more

Trust is the primary factor in any business building a long-lasting relationship, especially when a company operates globally and wants to build a loyal customer base. With the rapid acceleration of digital shopping and transactions comes a growing fraud landscape. And, given the continual increase of people wanting to transact online, marketplace companies – from ecommerce apps, ridesharing, to rental companies – need to have ideal strategies in place to protect themselves and their customers from fraudulent activities. Without ideal risk mitigation or comprehensive fraud and identity proofing strategies, marketplaces may find themselves facing the following: Card-not-present (CNP) Fraud: As online shopping increases, customers can’t provide a credit card directly to the merchant. That’s why fraudsters can use stolen credit card information to make unauthorized transactions. And in most cases, card owners are unaware of being compromised. Without an integrated view of risk, existing credit card authentication services used in isolation can result in high false positives, friction and a lack of card issuer support. Unverified Consumer Members, Vendors, Hosts & Drivers: From digital marketplace merchants like Etsy and Amazon, to peer-to-peer sharing economies like AirBnB, Uber and Lyft, the marketplace ecosystem is prone to bad actors who use false ID techniques to exploit both the platform and consumers for monetary gain. Additionally, card transaction touchpoints across the customer lifecycle increases risks of credit card authentication. This can be at account opening, account management when changes to existing account information is necessary, or at checkout. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) Muling: While a convenient way for consumers to plan for their purchases, experts warn that without cautionary and security measures, BNPL can be a target for digital fraud. Fraudsters may use their own or fabricated identities or leverage account takeover to gain access to a legitimate user’s account and payment information to make purchases with no intent to repay. This leaves the BNPL provider at the risk of unrecoverable monetary losses that can impact the business’ risk tolerance. Forged Listings & Fake Accounts: Unauthorized vendors that create a fake account using falsified identities, stolen credit cards and publish fake listings and product reviews are another threat faced by ecommerce marketplaces. These types of fraud can happen without the vast data sources necessary to assess the risk of a customer and authenticate credit cards among other fraud and identity verification solutions. By not focusing on establishing trust, fraud mitigation management solutions and identity proofing strategies, businesses can often find themselves with serious monetary, reputational, and security qualms. Interested in learning more? Download Experian’s Building Trust in Digital Marketplaces e-book and discover the strategies digital marketplaces, like the gig economy and peer-to-peer markets, can take to keep their users safe, and protected from fraudulent activity. For additional information on how Experian is helping businesses mitigate fraud, explore our comprehensive suite of identity and fraud solutions. Download e-book

With an abundance of loan options in today’s market, retaining customers can be challenging for banks and credit unions, especially small or regional institutions. And as more consumers look for personalization and digital tools in their banking experience, the likelihood of switching to institutions that can meet these demands is increasing.1 According to a recent Experian survey, 78% of consumers have conducted personal banking activities online in the last three months. However, 58% of consumers don’t feel that businesses completely meet their expectations for a digital online experience. To remain competitive in today's market, organizations must enhance their prescreen efforts by accelerating their digital transformation. Prescreen in today's economic environment While establishing a strong digital strategy is crucial to meeting the demands of today’s consumers, economic conditions are continuing to change, causing many financial institutions to either tighten their marketing budgets or hold off on their prescreen efforts completely. Fortunately, lenders can still drive growth during a changing economy without having to make huge cuts to their marketing budgets. How? The answer lies in digital prescreen. Case study: Uncover hidden growth opportunities Wanting to grow their business and existing relationships, Clear Mountain Bank looked for a solution that could help them engage customers with money-saving product offers while delivering a best-in-class digital banking experience. Leveraging Digital Prescreen with Micronotes, the bank was able to identify and present dollarized savings to customers who held higher-priced loans with other lenders. What’s more, the bank extended these offers through personalized conversations within their online and mobile banking platforms, resulting in improved digital engagement and increased customer satisfaction. By delivering competitive prescreen offers digitally, Clear Mountain Bank generated more than $1 million in incremental loans and provided customers with an average of $1,615 in cost savings within the first two months of deployment. “Digital Prescreen with Micronotes supplied the infrastructure to create higher-quality, personalized offers, as well as the delivery and reporting. They made prescreen marketing a reality for us.” – Robert Flockvich, Director of Community Outreach and Retail Lending at Clear Mountain Bank To learn more about how you can grow your portfolio and customer relationships, read the full case study or visit us. Download the case study Visit us 1The Keys to Solving Banking’s Customer Loyalty & Retention Problems, The Financial Brand, 2022.

“Businesses are managing vast and growing amounts of consumer data – all while ensuring consumers’ privacy and complying with complex government regulations.” This is one of the many reasons there’s an increasing need for innovative digital identity solutions, as explored in a in Axios in a new Experian advertorial. Experian Identity, an integrated suite of identity solutions, products, and services, solves for challenges presented by the continuing migration of consumers to the internet and the resulting growth of consumer data. Leveraging that data stemming from diverse sources and combining it with advanced technologies, is critical to better determining and understanding a company’s best marketing prospects, as well as making confident decisions that enhance and safeguard the consumer experience. How? By leveraging multidimensional data and adhering to all consumer protection laws and industry self-regulatory standards, businesses can best recognize and connect with their consumers in more personalized, meaningful and secure ways. The Axios article discusses the benefits of Experian Identity, including strengthening fraud detection, solving for identity resolution, and helping to uncover business opportunities through segmenting, targeting and engaging consumers. “While today’s consumers are intensely interested in protecting their personal data and identities, they also want to be recognized and understood by the companies they do business with,” said Kathleen Peters, Chief Innovation Officer of Experian Decision Analytics, in the article. Read more about how Experian’s identity solutions helps businesses stay relevant with audiences, create a positive consumer experience, and meet people’s desire to be recognized in Axios’ new article. AXIOS: Making identities personal Learn more about Experian Identity

As credit volumes recover from lows observed in 2021, lenders face new challenges – from increasing demand in customer expectations, to heightened competition, market volatility and a fierce war on talent. Many lenders have incorporated the foundational elements of credit analytics and seen significant initial returns. Now, it’s time for lenders to unlock even greater growth opportunities and operational efficiencies by exploring AI-powered solutions. Experian presented on a recent webinar hosted by Lendit Fintech, where Srikanth Geedipali, Senior Vice President of Global Analytics and AI for Experian, joined a panel of industry experts with representation from OPY and Citibank, to speak on how lenders can differentiate themselves by unlocking the power of advanced technologies such as AI and ML to address these emerging challenges. Watch the full webinar, NextGen Applications of AI in the Credit Lifecycle, and learn more about: Emerging trends in the AI/ML space that will drive innovation and differentiated solutions Use-cases for AI/ML across the lending lifecycle and how to leverage MLOps to industrialize analytics and improve speed and agility of decision-making How advanced technologies have driven impact for lenders of all sizes     This webinar is a part of Lendit Fintech’s webinar series. To learn more about how leveraging AI/ML can help optimize your lending strategies, contact us today. Learn more about Ascend Intelligence Services

Although 2021’s continued focus is Americans learning to co-exist with COVID-19, automotive manufacturers and dealers will likely remember 2021 as the year of the chip. The semiconductor chip shortage is now expected to cost the global automotive industry $210 billion in revenue in 2021 and it is now forecasted that 7.7 million units of production will be lost in 2021, up from 3.9 million in the May forecast.1 Most experts agree that the shortage will likely extend into 2022. Chip Shortage Creates Additional Challenge for Dealers The current shortage in semiconductors has automotive manufacturers and dealers questioning whether to continue advertising or pull back. Some dealers view the increase in profits due to reduced inventory a signal to pull back on advertising spend. Other dealers, however, are thinking about long-term marketing strategy—and are continuing to advertise to help maintain brand exposure to customers. Foreword-thinking dealers and agencies should use this time to evaluate advertising strategies and plan for life after the chip shortage. Staying visible to customers in the interim is critical, so any advertising needs to be strategic in audience, medium and message. Here are three recommendations to help keep your brand in front of current and future consumers while using marketing dollars wisely. Identify Your Audience: Be Sure to Market to the Right People Knowing which consumers are most likely to purchase your vehicles is a key element of targeting with the promise of saving money by marketing only to those who are most likely to result in a sale. By evaluating prior purchase, demographic, and psychographic trends, including specific life events, dealership marketers can more effectively pinpoint demand as well as foster positive relationships. For example, knowing that a consumer recently added a new child to the family would be a great reason to send a coupon or make a call. Experian’s Automotive Intelligence Engine™ (AIE) will send “events” to your CRM to alert you of life events that can help develop and deepen relationships that lead to future vehicle sales. Additionally, AIE’s Market Insights enable dealers to grow market share by identifying the best prospects and matching them with the right messages. Strategically targeting both conquest and loyal customers with appropriate messaging keeps consumers engaged so they will remember your brand when they buy next. Leverage Your Brand Reputation Keeping your brand front and center has been the cornerstone of your marketing efforts and that shouldn’t change. Much like looking at family photos or reading an article about your favorite team, exposure to positive advertisements reinforces a consumer’s relationship with your brand. Whether the goal is to leverage your OEM driven brand awareness or support the consumer relationship with your dealership, positive messages from local dealers perpetuate ongoing loyalty. Experian’s Automotive Intelligence Engine generates powerful marketing strategies and efficient data-driven, omni-channel media plans with engaging, brand-specific messaging direction that resonates with consumers. Dealers and agencies use AIE to generate custom marketing plans that leverage data-driven market analysis, strategic audience creation, and powerful marketing strategy, creating messages that effectively reach the right prospects, with the right message, on the right channel. This end-to-end solution will reach consumer mailboxes, inboxes, screens, and computers where your best audiences spend their time. Continue to Foster a Positive Relationship with Consumers Marketing is more than selling a story.  Marketing initiates the consumer experience, especially in the digital world. From effective OTT ads to strategic social posts, successful dealerships often put their relationship with the community at the heart of their message. Simple images of your dealership delivering meals to local first responders and essential workers or posts showing the local high school marching band loading instruments into one of your trucks can convey a strong sense of community pride to your brand.  This sort of promotion impacts future consumer purchases well beyond any chip shortage. While the chip shortage has had a profound impact on how dealerships approach vehicle acquisition, price structures and marketing, it will eventually be resolved. The decisions you make now can have a big impact on your success when the shortage ends. Learn more about Experian’s Automotive Intelligence Engine™ (AIE). https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/23/chip-shortage-expected-to-cost-auto-industry-210-billion-in-2021.html

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which regulates telemarketing calls, autodialed calls, prerecorded calls, text messages and unsolicited faxes, was originally passed in 1991. Since that time, there have been many rulings and updates that impact businesses’ ability to maintain TCPA compliance.   Recent TCPA Changes   On December 30, 2020, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) updated a number of TCPA exemptions, adding call limits and opt-out requirements, and codifying exemptions for calls to residential lines.   These changes, along with other industry changes, have added additional layers of complication to keeping compliant while still optimizing operations and the consumer experience.   Maintaining TCPA Compliance   Businesses who do not maintain TCPA compliance could be subject to a lawsuit and paying out damages, and potential hits to their reputation.   With the right partner in place, businesses can maintain data hygiene and accuracy to increase right-party contact (and reduce wrong-party contact) to keep collections streamlined and improve the customer experience.   Using the right technology in place, it’s easier to:   Monitor and verify consumer contact information for a better customer experience while remaining compliant. Receive and monitor daily notifications about changes in phone ownership information. Maintain compliance with Regulation F by leveraging a complete and accurate database of consumer information.   When searching for a partner, be sure to look for one who offers data scrubbing, phone type indicators, phone number scoring, phone number identity verification, ownership change monitoring, and who has direct access to phone carriers.   To learn more about how the right technology can help your business maintain TCPA compliance, visit us or request a call. Learn more

Establishing a strong digital strategy remains a top priority for most financial institutions. With more eyes on screens and electronic devices, the pandemic-induced shift to digital has increased the need to meet consumers where they are. New Innovations As a Result of an Accelerated Shift to Digital  In Ernst & Young’s 2019 biannual Global Fintech Adoption Index, 46% of American respondents indicated they were using at least one fintech service. Fast forward, COVID-19 has accelerated the American adoption rate to 59%, according to a September survey conducted by Plaid, a leading digital payments infrastructure company. This shift to digital also resulted in an uptick in the creation of banking and savings processes that leverage advanced technologies. For example, digital-first technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing the prescreen landscape as never before. For financial institutions, smart prescreen marketing solutions, coupled with a traditional approach to personalized service, present vast opportunities to build deeper consumer relationships. However, implementing an effective strategy can be challenging. In a recent webinar, Experian’s Vice President of Product Management Jacob Kong tackled the topic of using new analytics and AI to create a digital-first strategy. Joined by Mark Sievewright, founder of Sievewright & Associates and co-author of Digital Life, and Devon Kinkead, CEO of Micronotes.ai, they explored the evolution of banking and the possibilities offered by pairing data with technology in our new digital world. Watch the full webinar, 'Digital-First Strategies: New Analytics and Artificial Intelligence for Marketing,' and learn more about: The shift to digital life and banking, new analytics and AI How data and information value empowers prescreen marketing Emerging technologies and new tools that can support aggressive growth and marketing initiatives while mitigating risk How Experian is joining forces with Micronotes.ai to launch Micronotes ReFI powered by Experian, to help lower customers’ or members’ borrowing costs by refinancing mispriced debt Learn more about Micronotes ReFI powered by Experian To explore how Experian’s solutions and capabilities can power your prescreen and marketing strategies, please visit our solutions page or contact us for more information. Contact Us

The pandemic changed nearly everything – and consumer credit is no exception. Data, analytics, and credit risk decisioning are gaining an even more significant role as we grow closer to the end of the global crisis. Consumers face uneven roads to recovery, and while some are ready to spend again, others are still dealing with pandemic-related financial stress. We surveyed nearly 9,000 consumers and 2,700 businesses worldwide about how consumers are stabilizing their finances and businesses are returning to growth for our new Global Decisioning Report. In this report, we dive into: Key business priorities in 2021 Financial concerns for consumers How to navigate an uneven recovery Business priorities for the year ahead The importance of the online experience As we begin to near the end of the pandemic, businesses need to prioritize technology that enables a responsive, flexible, efficient and confident approach. This can be done by leveraging advanced data and analytics and integrating machine learning tools into model development. By investing in the right credit risk decisioning tools now, you can help ensure your future. Download the report

For credit unions of all sizes, choosing a strategic partner with the right tools, capabilities, and industry expertise to support growth while minimizing expenses is a decision critical to the bottom line. This is especially important, since the goal of achieving sustainable growth has continued to be a trending topic for credit unions since the start of the pandemic. According to this CU Times analysis of NCUA data, the fourth quarter of 2020 showed that high overhead per assets was the main factor holding down net income, and credit unions with less than $1 billion in assets fared the worst. These high overhead costs kept margins low and served to be a key contributing factor in gauging a credit union’s profitability. Overcoming this problem lies not only in improving operational efficiency, but in seeking out partners that can provide innovative insight and “right-sized,” scalable solutions to help credit unions effectively grow at a strategic pace. The less money a credit union spends earning each dollar, the more operationally efficient and resource-savvy it becomes—which in turn generates more value for both the credit union and its members. So how can a credit union successfully assess a potential partner’s ability to help them achieve goals for sustainable growth? Asking three key questions can reveal a potential partner’s operational prowess and their ability to understand and offer the right solutions tailored for an individual credit union’s need. Minimize Overhead with a Partner Who Can Help Accelerate and Support Sustainable Growth: Evaluation Questions to Ask 1. Does my potential partner offer solutions to ease the strain on staff, or help automate time-consuming, repetitive tasks and processes? Automation is not only for large credit unions. Employees at credit unions with $4 billion and less in assets often wear many hats and manage the full spectrum of credit activities, leaving leaders to ponder how much time staff is spending on rote, manual tasks throughout the end-to-end member lifecycle. As a result, credit unions are turning to automated decisioning to streamline repetitive tasks and meet increasing member expectations, while also reducing risk. To drive sustainable growth, credit unions will want to look at current processes as a means of measuring efficiency. Can existing programs handle growth to scale in all areas of the business? How can digital lending automation be increased and free up more time for staff to focus attention where it is needed most, such as high-value engagements with members and delivering a personalized member experience? Can self-service tools save your credit union valuable time and increase employee satisfaction? 2. Does my potential partner have access to the right data, advanced analytics and technology to help optimize credit decisioning? As credit unions consider different ways to minimize overhead and accelerate growth, the last few years have shown that automation, coupled with advanced analytics and technology, has taken on a second wave of focus and intense interest. A significant opportunity pertaining to automation is supporting decisioning throughout the member lifecycle, again, eliminating the need for manual processes that cannibalize time and resources. For example, access to advanced analytics and data at the onset of account acquisition can quickly inform a lender as to whether a new account should be approved or declined. Furthermore, it also presents an opportunity to lend deeper. Credit unions can leverage expanded datasets to perform an analysis on rejected applicants and make more predictive decisions – leading to incremental loans. Additionally, lenders have identified other areas where automated decisioning could speed up processes that once required manual evaluation – from account and portfolio management, to marketing and prescreening efforts, to managing early and late-stage delinquent accounts. By leveraging a partner who can support optimizing credit decisioning with the freshest data and analytics, credit unions can routinely and consistently be sure they’re making the right offers and decisions to the right customer at the right time. 3. Does my potential partner offer digital-first strategies and solutions that help reduce friction and improve the member experience? More and more members are interacting and engaging with their credit unions via digital channels. To meet their demands, credit unions – who have historically prioritized other initiatives over digital transformation– are quickly pivoting and rethinking their digital strategy to offer best-in-class digital banking and borrowing experiences, while also reducing friction. Part of this strategy includes smart, easy and well-designed applications that support sustainable growth simply by streamlining offers and reducing abandonment. When considering a potential partner, take into consideration their ability to assist with digital-first solutions, including: Real-time income and employment verification, and fraud tools to quickly and accurately confirm important factors, including the legitimacy of members, and streamline the borrowing process with minimal friction. Instant prescreen, self-service prequalification and instant credit to offer fast, easy, and convenient real-time credit decisions for members. Additionally, improving lending economics with a digital-first pre-qualification tool can not only better serve members, but also drive more apps and grow loans. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and other innovative technologies to enhance underwriting and decrease both hard inquiries on applications and the need for extensive underwriter review. Prequalification tools powered by innovative technology solutions can lead to efficient use of underwriter resources and act as a filter in front of the LOS to remove unqualified applications from hard inquiries. Technology that integrates with multiple lending and core systems and delivers solutions that integrate with multiple systems and channels. For example, to help improve conversion, the borrower experience can be offered a simple application that is designed to “get to offer” as fast as possible. This helps reduce abandonment. The process can be further streamlined by integrating data sources for ID verification, auto fill assistance and adding integrations with existing lending and core systems. To learn more about Experian and how our solutions can support and grow your credit union, contact us now. Contact Us