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As I reflect on the impact COVID-19 has had on my work and family life, I’m reminded of the things I once took for granted. My day-to-day routine has evolved into one of working from home, helping to take care of my toddler, and at times, doing so while on conference calls, sorting out the next grocery delivery, and writing this blog. While it’s a challenge, I’ve come to appreciate and value many of the things I’ve once taken for granted. But I also understand, I’m not the only person experiencing change.    Across the globe, lives have been upended. The impact of the COVID-19 outbreak has been far-reaching and felt by hundreds of millions of people; whether due to family members that have fallen ill, job loss, shortened working hours or their children out of school. COVID-19 is an existential challenge that no one industry or entity can single-handedly address; we all need to play our part.   Some companies, such as Fanatics, Ford, General Motors and Tesla, have shifted production efforts to focus on manufacturing medical resources, including personal protective equipment and ventilators. Others are donating free meals and resources to help consumers across the globe manage during this unprecedented time.   Much like these organizations, Experian is committed to helping consumers and businesses navigate our current environment. We’ve expanded our financial education programming with the goal of helping consumers maintain good credit and protect their financial health. We’ve also offered small businesses free access to their Experian business credit report to help them better gauge their financial options and understand what capital is available to them. But as the world continues to combat the pandemic, we, like others, must look for new and additional ways to help.   As essential organizations extend outreach efforts for those impacted by the outbreak, we believe data and technology can help them identify the groups that are most at-risk. With finite resources and limited bandwidth, it’s important for these organizations to communicate with at-risk populations and provide essential products and services as quickly as possible.   With this urgency in mind, Experian developed At-Risk audience segments, which it is making available free of charge to essential organizations, such as government agencies, healthcare providers and non-governmental organizations, to help combat the fallout of the COVID-19 outbreak. The segments are built in a privacy-compliant manner and provide insights to help essential organizations reach those most in need. Organizations can use the information to determine where to allocate emergency funds, as well as redirect healthcare resources.   Because the situation associated with the pandemic is changing seemingly every day and is impacting individuals in different ways and times, we also instituted a daily survey of the general population to gain insights around shifting consumer sentiment as a result of COVID-19.  The insights from the survey will help organizations understand consumer sentiment during this difficult time and begin the process to identify at-risk populations.   As of April 8, 2020, the survey found that:   73 percent of Baby Boomers are concerned about visiting the doctor and/or would hold off seeking care.  60 percent of Americans are concerned about filling prescriptions and/or accessing healthcare resources.  64 percent of Americans are concerned about their ability to access food and other essentials.   COVID-19 has impacted consumers and businesses across the globe. As we all adapt to the new environment, we need to work together and collaborate to find ways to combat the fallout.  Experian will not be stopping here, and we are committed to developing new ways to use our resources, data, technology, and creativity to help be part of the solution.      

If you asked me how I’d feel about taking a personal finance class in school when I was growing up in a small town near St. Louis, Missouri, I probably would’ve told you it sounds better than trigonometry and chemistry on the list of classes I had to take. They weren’t my best subjects.  Now that I’m a few years older, and I hope a bit wiser, I can promise you I would answer that question a lot differently if asked today.   I now know there are some instances in life where it makes sense to learn by making mistakes, but money is not one of them. Like many people, I had my first experience with credit and money management when I took out a student loan. I was the first person in my family to go to college, so we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. Unfortunately, I learned the impact of poor borrowing habits and high interest rates the hard way – for many, many years.  Learning about money, and especially credit, by making mistakes can lead to long term damage to your financial health, which is one of the many reasons I’m passionate about financial education in schools today. Effective financial education programs will help young adults be more successful older adults.   We know that if a young person has a basic understanding of how credit works, they tend to be less likely to overextend their credit card use. It’s one of the reasons Experian was the first in its industry to invest in youth financial education, as a founding partner of the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy two decades ago. Over that time, we’ve continued to support the organization.   Eleven years ago, we launched the Jump$tart National Educator Conference that offers teachers around the country tools and information about personal finance to take back to their classrooms. Last year, more than 350 teachers attended the conference. This year alone they will teach more than 48,000 students across the country about personal finance. It's been a very powerful partnership.  While we’ve made a lot of progress in educating our youth about personal finance, there is still a lot of work to do. As of this year, 21 states across the U.S. require high school students to take a personal finance course, an increase of 4 states since 2018, according to a recently released report from the Council for Economic Education.   This report also reinforced the idea that students who receive financial education borrow more sensibly. They tend to look at low-cost over high-cost financing options and they are more likely to apply for aid, receive grants and accept federal loans, which all tend to be lower interest forms of borrowing. Applying for grants or low-cost financing options could have made a serious impact on my financial health as a young adult. Considering student loan debt has now reached $1.56 trillion, it’s time we all start paying more attention to the positive impact financial education can have on our young people as well as our economy.   Not only is financial education in schools the right thing to do, we know it’s something students want. We recently surveyed a group of more than 500 high school graduates to learn what they want when it comes to finance and credit education. Some key findings include:   49% of Gen Z consumers surveyed said they found financial topics to be somewhat interesting or very interesting—and 11% of them even said they loved learning about them.  Only about one-third—36%—of Gen Z consumers said they had taken a class on a financial topic, and among that group, many of them still had looming financial questions.  Of the 64% that had never taken a financial education class, 43% reported wanting to learn to save money, 38% wanted to learn how to manage their expenses, and another 36% said they wanted to take a class that taught them how to file their taxes.  A large majority—76%—of Gen Z consumers said that they thought their high school should have offered a class on managing finances.  So, what can we do to help ensure our young people grow up to be financially healthy adults?   If you’re a parent and want to find out if your children’s school offers financial education, head to https://checkyourschool.org/. If your school is not on the list, learn how you can become engaged in this initiative by working with JumpStart.   In the meantime, you can also find free, educational resources on our website to help teach your children about personal finance and credit. We have prepared a simple lesson plan, presentations and online brochures that are free to download, and you can find answers to commonly asked questions about personal finance, credit, fraud, identity theft and more on our Ask Experian blog and our weekly Twitter Credit Chats.   

The following is written by Mike Kilander, Global Managing Director, Data Quality, at Experian With companies facing increasingly complex data challenges that can determine the success or failure of their business, never has it been so important to have accurate and reliable data. Businesses encounter almost continuous disruption – frequently driven by accelerated data insights – and increasing regulatory pressure to improve transparency and ensure consumer privacy. Moreover, the modern consumer brings online expectations and digital demands, requiring companies to respond ever faster and more  than before. One-to-one marketing has become the new digital experience. To handle these new digital demands and market pressure, organizations must improve their ability to leverage their data and gather key insights, especially on their ever-changing customers. But while there is more information available than ever before, data is a largely untapped resource. Why are we drowning in data, yet starved for insight? There are two key areas where organizations are struggling: developing trust in the accuracy of their data and gaining access to it. Organizations told us they suspect almost a third of their data is inaccurate, which limits their ability to leverage data to drive improved business outcomes.  If you can’t trust your information, how are you supposed to make big strategic business decisions with it. Second, the average business user can’t get timely access to the data or insight they need. In fact, 70% say that not having direct control over data impacts their ability to meet strategic objectives. Too often, access to data only comes after the submission of an IT ticket and weeks of waiting. We see, year after year, many businesses fail to take full advantage of the opportunity their data. Current infrastructure and management practices are often not set up to handle today’s digital consumer, the volume of data generated, and the multitude of systems collecting the data, leaving users with inaccurate data and limited access. Consequently, they have been limited in their ability to leverage new data talent, technology, and best practices that can help them gain the necessary insight to innovate and stay competitive. In the past several years managing data became more complicated because of the increasingly diverse group of stakeholders who want to leverage and have access to data. It isn’t enough now just to make sure the data is right, which most companies still have not cracked. Now you also must make sure that insight is provided with the right context, to the right business user who can make the most effective decisions for the organization. These challenges will only become more acute as organizations not only continue to delay meaningful investment in data management, but also miss the emerging trend of democratization of data control in the organization.  When investing in technology, few stop to think about the overarching operational data strategy and how decentralized data manipulation has become. Organizations need the right ownership or strong data leadership that allows them to access data and take advantage of insight, while considering consumer privacy, data security and data governance. Experian just released a new report looking at customer experience data trends, developing trust in information and changing data ownership. I encourage you to read this new report in the hopes that it will shed light into best practices around leveraging data. Download the new 2019 Global Data Management report here.

Digital commerce has changed the way consumers interact with businesses. More people are transacting online versus going into retail stores, and more than half of banking is done via mobile channels. Yet both businesses and consumers still want convenience and security, without increased fraud risk. And as interactions have become more anonymous in an online space, trust is based on businesses protecting consumers from fraud while still providing a great customer experience. So, what does it take to build trusted relationships online? New research from our 2019 Global Identity and Fraud Report shows that 74% of consumers see security as the most important element of their online experience, followed by convenience. In the past, businesses have often invested in one at the expense of the other, and our research suggests that consumers can expect both security and convenience without the trade-off. The availability of information consumers share with businesses make this possible, and consumers are willing to share more personal information if they believe it means greater online security and convenience. In fact, our research found that 70 percent of consumers are willing to share more personal data, particularly when they see a benefit. However, this value exchange of more personal information for a better online experience is the same information that puts consumers at a greater risk for fraud. Instead, businesses need to demand more from the information they already have access to and use more sophisticated authentication strategies and advanced technologies to better identify their customers and deliver tailored, streamlined experiences without increasing their risk exposure. Findings from the study reveal that consumers and business leaders agree that security methods enabled by new technologies and advanced authentication methods instill online trust. In fact, consumer confidence grew from 43 percent to 74 percent when physical biometrics was used to protect their accounts.  The report also found that businesses are beginning to embrace the changing technology, while half of organizations globally reported an increase in their fraud management budget over the past twelve months. And lastly, the report looked at transparency and how that impacts consumer trust. In order to create even more trust online, many businesses are proactively sharing with customers how they use their personal information. The report found that nearly 80 percent of consumers say the more transparent a business is about the use of their information, the greater trust they have in that business. And the good news is that 56 percent of businesses plan to invest more in transparency-inspired programs such as – consumer education, communicating terms more concisely, and helping consumers feel in control of their personal data. Fraud remains a constant threat and it should come as no surprise that nearly 60 percent of consumers worldwide have experienced online fraud at some point. However, both business and consumers are getting smarter about how they manage fraud and it comes down to the important theme of trust. In order for consumers to trust businesses, they need to feel secure. And by adopting better security measures, businesses can embrace the important role of protecting customers and giving them the experience they want and deserve. Download the new Experian 2019 Fraud & Identity report here.

In our increasingly digital world, there’s a growing expectation among consumers to only receive personal and relevant content from brands.

According to a recent Experian survey among 500 child identity theft victims who are now adults, one in four survey respondents are still dealing with issues more than 10 years after the fact, and 35% have sought professional help in dealing with related stress, anxiety, anger or depression related to the theft.

We recently looked at the borrowing behaviors of 60 million millennials to help millennials and businesses get a clearer picture of the next big wave of homebuyers to hit the mortgage market.

During the National Football League’s biggest weekend, it’s often the commercials that take center stage. It’s every advertiser’s dream. The world as your audience. But how do advertisers capitalize on the opportunity and connect with viewers?

Consumers are constantly on the go, and expect and deserve highly personalized communications. But how do marketers adapt to this new reality?