Equifax Improves The Power Of Credit Screening For Financial Services Marketers
Equifax Marketing Connections aims to increase response rates through increased accuracy and compliance with third-party data rules
London, 11th April 2006 - With increased government focus on indebtedness, the pressure is on financial services marketers to continue to reduce the risk of making offers to those who cannot afford them. But leading marketing services expert, Equifax, believes this sector has not yet exploited the real advantages of increased data accuracy to meet this challenge, following the change in the rules for use of third-party data as a result of the Data Protection Act 1998. To address this need, the company has introduced a new credit pre-screening and data enhancement marketing database, Equifax Marketing Connections.
Equifax Marketing Connections is a consolidated file of Equifax data sets, including Electoral Roll, search, CCJ and payment data, covering over 80 million name and address entries, including both current and previous address histories.
Equifax is ahead of the legislative requirements for processing data compliantly for marketing purposes, following the introduction of changes to the use of third- party data* following on from the Data Protection Act 1998, confirmed Dave Webber, Head of Products, Equifax Marketing Services. This means we can offer much higher levels of accuracy for matching names for pre-screening. It also means that marketers can have access to infinitely more accurate data in respect of those prospects most suitable for a credit offer. We believe this is crucial in supporting government initiatives to reduce indebtedness and helping the financial services industry to optimise the cost-effectiveness of campaigns and protect their brand.
The implementation of the third-party data rules in Marketing Connections means that Equifax can provide more predictive characteristics for individual prospects. For example, data on individuals now includes information recorded in a previous surname, and family data now includes data from an individual with a different surname where there is a proven financial link. This is particularly important as it has been proven that a partner’s credit status can affect an individual’s own ability to repay credit. This information is automatically included in the Marketing Connections database even if the couple do not share the same surname.
For each name and address, a combination of over 500 credit characteristics has been created at individual, family and household level - to give marketers all the information they need for the most effective credit pre-screening.
Updated monthly, Marketing Connections is already being utilised by two major credit card providers with significant increases in response rates and reduced wastage anticipated.
Our early implementation of the third party data rules mean that we are now able to better identify individuals and family groups for pre-screening concluded Dave Webber. And this means that marketers can better align both their credit risk and marketing policies as part of the pre-screening process.
Credit Pre-Screening is a well-established tool in the financial services sector, but Marketing Connections boosts the depth and accuracy of data available, removing the prospects that are most likely to fail the application process. We believe this is particularly important in the current economic climate where there is so much focus and concern on the level of consumer indebtedness.
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*The agreed industry interpretation of the Data Protection Act 1998 requires that lenders no longer take into account financial information related to other family members unless they are formally financially connected to the applicant.
