Experian, the global information solutions company, has acquired Economic Research Services, a UK-based economic development and regeneration consultancy. Economic Research Services (ERS) is a specialist provider of economic impact, strategy development and evaluation services, with clients that include government departments, government agencies, local authorities, regeneration partnerships, voluntary bodies and regional development agencies.

Founded in 1994, the Newcastle-based consultancy employs a highly specialised team of economic analysts, regeneration experts and researchers via a network of regional offices across the UK .

ERS will form part of Experian's Business Strategies division, which is now one of Europe 's leading global economic forecasting and research groups. The acquisition complements Experian's existing economic policy research services and will enable the combined businesses to provide a broader range of products and services to the public sector. This includes everything from large scale strategic government research projects to smaller, detailed local impact assessment studies.

The acquisition will extend the geographical reach of Business Strategies' UK economics research business. With offices in London , Edinburgh and Nottingham, the acquisition will provide Experian's Business Strategies division with additional regional presence in Newcastle , Carlisle, Bristol and Leicester .

Charles Burton, Managing Director of Experian's Business Strategies division, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Economic Research Services to Business Strategies. ERS has built a formidable reputation in the public sector where it has been providing a range of specialised policy impact and evaluation services. Economic Research Services enjoys close synergies with our existing economics research business and we will gain from its unique and practical understanding of how government programmes and projects work at local level.

“The acquisition complements Business Strategies' public sector offering and provides our economic policy and research business with an extended regional presence. This means we will be able to provide a broader range of localised services to many more clients across the UK , with particular emphasis on work for public sector and local government organisations. ERS's specialisation in public policy evaluation will be increasingly in demand, as more and more programmes are screened for their effectiveness.”

Keith Burge, Founder and Managing Director of Economic Research Services, added: “By combining with Experian we will now be in a position to offer a broader range of analytical services including more sophisticated desk-based modelling expertise. We will also gain access to Experian's vast data assets including its unique consumer analytics and profiling products such as Mosaic. ERS will also gain from better access to new and existing clients in London , the South East and Scotland .”

	Participate in this online survey that aims to determine current- and future strategic credit management education and training needs.

Carina van Zijl, a lecturer in the School of Management Sciences (Unisa), is conducting research in conjunction with Experian and the Bureau of Market Research (Unisa). The aim of the survey is, firstly, to determine credit managers' knowledge and skills of the principles of strategic credit management. And secondly, to determine current- and future strategic credit management education and training needs.

All Experian Credinews readers have been selected for inclusion in this survey. We will appreciate it if you could spend ± 12 minutes of your time to answer the 19 questions of the attached questionnaire. The closing date is 27 February 2007.

All information will be treated as confidential. A summary of the results of the survey will be published in Credinews, later in the year.

Guidelines for completing the questionnaire

•  Make sure that you are not interrupted while answering the questionnaire, since the link does not make provision to answer a few questions now, to save it and to continue at a later stage.

•  Click on the link http://bibinf.unisa.ac.za/bmr/ask20/questionnaire.html?Ext to answer the 19 questions.

•  All 19 questions MUST be answered. The process of analyzing and interpreting the results will be jeopardized should you NOT answer certain questions.

•  Click on the “submit” button at the end of the questionnaire to submit.

Experian-Scorex, the global decision support business of Experian, has announced that Shenzhen Development Bank, one of the leading banks in China, is to implement the Strategy Management decision engine to strengthen its retail banking business.

The Strategy Management technology will be delivered through GE Money, which has a global partnership with Experian-Scorex to support GE’s decision support operations in over 20 countries.

GE Money is the world’s leading provider of credit services to consumers, retailers and motor dealers, with more than 118 million customers around the world. In 2005, it announced the creation of a strategic alliance with Shenzhen Development Bank to develop consumer finance opportunities in China.

Elio Vitucci, Managing Director of Experian-Scorex, said: “We are pleased to be able to support Shenzhen Development Bank’s efforts to strengthen its retail banking business by providing the advanced decision support technology it needs to manage the ongoing strategic changes in the dynamic Chinese market. We have worked closely with GE and its global risk teams for many years, supporting over 100 installations of our Strategy Management business rules engine across the company. We are confident that the Strategy Management technology will be a strategic asset for the SDB-GE partnership.”

Michael Barrett, CEO, GE Money China, said: “China represents an exciting long-term growth opportunity for our financial services business. Strong risk management practices will be a core part of the growth strategy for Shenzhen Development Bank. We are committed to sharing our expertise in retail consumer finance management and systems with our partner to help it become a leading retail bank in China. Experian-Scorex’s technology is an important strategic technology investment for the Bank.”

Strategy Management provides rapid, flexible and robust decisioning technology that is key to helping businesses to grow more quickly, implementing strong risk management standards. Experian-Scorex is bringing expertise and technology to the Asia Pacific region with offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Australia.

Whereas economic growth has varied across Europe in recent years, consumer lending has seen consistently high levels of increase virtually everywhere throughout the region. It is hard to see these current rates of growth continuing, as some of the drivers have been ‘one-offs', though a gradual slowing seems more likely than a stop or reversal.

In the past few years, much attention has been focused on the acceleration in consumer lending in most European countries. During this period, the growth in bank lending has been relatively strong in the Eurozone - a factor mentioned by the ECB in explaining its tightening monetary stance, with consumer lending data suggesting that demand from households has been an important part of this accelerating trend. With the exception of Germany (and to a degree, Belgium, though now fast catching up), European households have been increasing their borrowing relatively rapidly.  Housing finance has led the charge, being both the cause and effect of the acceleration in property prices in recent years. 

Taking a longer-term view, consumer borrowing trends in Europe can be categorised into three groups:

Rapid Climbers: These are mainly in Southern or Eastern Europe, reflecting the financial changes undergone in the process of joining the Eurozone. Portugal and Spain show both the steepest rate of increase as well as the highest level of household debt to GDP ratios at 84% and 72%, respectively.

Mature Growers :  A second group of European countries had relatively mature consumer credit markets at the start of this period, but which have, nonetheless, continued to experience relatively strong growth.  As a result of strong lending growth, the Netherlands, Denmark and the UK have household debt at, or above, GDP. 

Moderate Growth : The last small group, which we might call ‘core Europe' given its membership have experienced some growth, but at smaller rates than the other groups. Italy looks relatively ‘under-leveraged' by European standards, particularly relative to the ratios being seen in far less affluent economies elsewhere in the region.

Key Drivers of Lending Growth: How Transitory?

Three factors have driven this strong growth in consumer lending trends in Europe. 

In summary, the signs show that credit growth in Europe will slow as the push factors become less supportive, though a complete reversal is unlikely. Consumer credit growth is likely to be stronger in less mature, less leveraged, consumer markets and financial innovation will be affected by credit demand and regulation – although there is still plenty room for growth here. However, the key risk factor that remains for consumer credit is lending rates – faster rises than anticipated and the spill over effect on asset prices.

Experian, the global information solutions company, has achieved an industry first by becoming an accredited CIFAS member.

The company is one of just 14 out of 255 Members with this accreditation following three separate compliance reviews by CIFAS over three years. Having achieved a ‘superior' rating on each occasion, Experian's Consumer Operations department was eligible to apply for accreditation.

To attain the accreditation, the fraud team had to demonstrate best practice in all areas, with all its procedures being thoroughly examined by independent consultants employed by CIFAS. The review also covered staff training and the handling of complaints.

Experian's Consumer Operations has been helping to protect consumers and lenders from fraud for over four years by identifying fraudulent applications for credit reports by ‘consumers' and notifying CIFAS. This information can be accessed by financial services providers (who are CIFAS members) to help identify potentially fraudulent activity and thus reduce their losses resulting from fraud.

“Experian is the first credit reference agency to achieve this standard,” said Beverley Young, Head of Training and Compliance at CIFAS. “This accreditation underlines the strength of the company's commitment to combating fraudulent activity.”

Helen Lord, Director of Fraud, Compliance and Product Governance at Experian, said: “It's great to see our contribution to combating fraud achieving this, the highest industry recognition, for our efforts. We're continually developing our consumer intelligence services to help financial service providers and anti-fraud officials reduce fraud, minimise risk and better protect the consumer.”

Experian will be presented with the Accredited Member Certificate at the CIFAS AGM at The Landmark Hotel London in May 2007.

	Source: Business Day 6 February 2007 The requirements of the new National Credit Act are set to have a significant effect on scorecards and risk models, the hi-tech tools that credit managers use to determine the credit-worthiness of applicants.

Patricia Hill, head of scoring for Experian-Scorex South Africa, says that compliance with the act has been the focus of detailed discussion among credit-providers, covering such issues as affordability calculations, responsible lending, communication and debt counselling, among others.

A key area is the inclusion of certain application information in the credit-granting model, which essentially consists of the scorecard, segmentation strategy and policy rules, Hill says.

She says that on the change in adverse retention periods, consumers with adverse information recorded two to three years ago represent a higher than average risk. Therefore, the deletion of this adverse information will affect the ability of the credit provider to assess a consumer's risk, Hill says.

“It must be emphasised that although the proportion of the population that has been affected is small (approximately 1%), the associated increase in bad debt incurred by the credit provider will increase markedly in most sectors.”

The regulations for a credit information amnesty state that a registered credit bureau must remove adverse consumer credit information (as at September 1 last year) that relates to a debt of less than R500, as well as dormant accounts. These are accounts with no adverse status that have not been active for 24 months.

A credit bureau also has to remove all civil court judgments up to R500, except in instances where consumers have more than two unpaid judgments on their credit records. Judgments for amounts up to R5000 must also be removed if the judgment is older than 18 months, subject to the same exception criteria.

Civil judgments for amounts up to R50000 must be removed if the full amount in respect of the judgment was paid by the consumer by September 1 2006. This credit information must be removed by June 1 this year. Furthermore, judgments of up to R50000 that were fully paid by the consumer between September 1 last year and September 1 this year must also be removed.

Hill says that a study by Experian-Scorex indicated that consumers in the lower income groups will be affected by the information amnesty.

Advanced Credit Risk Workshop

The following jobs are available: Business Analyst - The applicant is expected to respond to the client's business needs in the production/customization of software to the required level of quality. The applicant must be socially confident, adaptable and have a keen sense for learning. He or she must be able to work in a pressurized environment and respond timeously to deadlines. Click here for more information.

Account Manager - The Account Manager is responsible for managing mid to high value clients as part of the Experian Account Management Team. The Account Manager is responsible for building and maintaining deep relationships with Experian's clients. This role is responsible for ongoing account management, revenue generation and client satisfaction including understanding the client's needs to identify opportunities for strategic services. Click here for more information.

Technical Analyst Programmer - This person will report to the Head of the Innovation and Implementation, will share responsibilities for supporting as well and customizing applications on the Experian products, in accordance with internal & external expectations and service level agreements. Click here fore more information.

Developer - This person will report to the Development Manager and will share responsibilities for supporting as well and developing applications on the Experian Bureau Information System, in accordance with internal & external expectations and service level agreements. Click here fore more information.

Scoring Analyst - It is a very demanding role that expects one to analyse data in order to build statistical models that assist in predicting future behaviour. The applicant will be required to play a role in the development of scoring models and become involved in the design, specification and monitoring of all application and behavioural scoring systems. Click here fore more information.

Product Manager - The main responsibility of this role is to identify, define and justify enhancements of nominated local and international product developments, controlling its development to ensure it can profitably meet client and market requirements. To ensure that all business units are adequately equipped and suitably resourced to ensure successful procurement and delivery of such product solutions. Click here for more information.