• by Ray Schultz , March 9, 2017

Equifax has introduced an analytics portfolio called Ignite. One of its features is customized apps that financial institutions and marketers in general can use to determine credit worthiness and likelihood to buy.  

The suite, announced today, provides rapid access to analytics and modeling capabilities and data on the entire U.S. population, comprising three petabytes, according to Equifax. It has three main delivery channels:

Equifax Ignite Models and Scores — This provides configurable scores, facilitating customer acquisition, segmentation and improvement of customer relationships. Equifax custom builds this for clients. 

Equifax Ignite Direct — This self-service tool allows users to create analytics based on direct access to data, Equifax says. The client company builds its own. 

Equifax Ignite Marketplace — This can be used for analytics applications, including those that reveal benchmarks and industry trends. Equifax calls it "a virtual destination for all of the Equifax analytical applications (apps) available for download." The client gets access, and there is an app for it.

These solutions can be used in email marketing. But they can also enable credit issuers to drill down and find consumers they had not targeted before — the “unbanked population.” 

For example, a consumer may not have a conventional credit history. But that person may be very good at paying mobile carriers and telecom providers.

Equifax now has access to that information, and can use it when determining credit risk. “They might be a 680 score,” said Donovan Vansant, an executive at Equifax. “But if you layer in (this other payment data), it’s more like a 720, so they get a different offer.”

Vansant demonstrated one Ignite application, featuring a map. He looked in Georgia for “all individuals and data assets,” to find prospects for an auto purchase. The variables included “the average open rate, how many opened car loans and purchased or leased new vehicles last year.”

Then, fueled by “further granularity, Vansant drilled down and found — in aggregate — a quantity of live prospects throughout the state, by location. He noted that the population decreases as you further qualify it.

Vansant added that the data for such an exercise, is “non-regulated,” because it is based on non-credit data assets such as aggregated wealth data and property records. 

The company refers to its vast data holdings as “the data lake,” said Prasanna Dhore, chief data and analytics officer at Equifax INC. One objective is to reach "the holy grail--a 360 degree view of the customer."

Dhore noted that Ignite also facilitates industry trend studies. For example, it can look at new credit lines versus delinquency rates and evaluate the trends, including the greater economic impact, with a “five-year view,” if needed.

Equifax, once thought of as only as a credit bureau, has evolved. "Back around 11 years ago, around 80% of our revenue was credit reports," Dhore said. "Now it's roughly less than 30%. We're transforming into an insights company."