Equifax Inc. (Equifax) is a global data, analytics and technology company.
The company provides information solutions for businesses, governments and consumers, and provides human resources business process automation and outsourcing services for employers. The company has a large and diversified group of clients, including financial institutions, corporations, government agencies and individuals. The company's services are based on comprehensive databases of consumer and business information d...
Equifax Inc. (Equifax) is a global data, analytics and technology company.
The company provides information solutions for businesses, governments and consumers, and provides human resources business process automation and outsourcing services for employers. The company has a large and diversified group of clients, including financial institutions, corporations, government agencies and individuals. The company's services are based on comprehensive databases of consumer and business information derived from numerous sources including credit, financial assets, telecommunications and utility payments, employment, income, educational history, criminal justice data, healthcare professional licensure and sanctions, demographic and marketing data. The company uses advanced statistical techniques, machine learning and proprietary software tools to analyze available data to create customized insights, decision-making and process automation solutions and processing services for its clients. The company is a leading provider of information and solutions used in payroll-related and human resource management business process services in the United States of America (U.S.), as well as e-commerce fraud and charge back protection services in North America. For consumers, the company provides products and services to help people understand, manage and protect their personal information and make more informed financial decisions. Additionally, the company provides information, technology and services to support debt collections and recovery management.
The company operates in four global regions: North America (U.S. and Canada), the Asia Pacific (Australia, New Zealand and India), Europe (the United Kingdom (U.K.), Spain and Portugal) and Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay). The company maintains support operations in Chile, Costa Rica, India and Ireland. The company also has investments in consumer and/or commercial credit information companies through joint ventures in Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brazil.
Segments
The company operates through three segments: Workforce Solutions, U.S. Information Solutions (USIS), and International.
Workforce Solutions - Provides services enabling customers to verify income, employment, educational history, criminal justice data, healthcare professional licensure and sanctions of people in the U.S. (Verification Services), as well as providing the company's employer customers with services which include unemployment claims management, I-9 and onboarding services, Affordable Care Act compliance management, tax credits and incentives and other complementary employment-based transaction services (Employer Services). Workforce Solutions has established operations in Canada, Australia and the U.K.
U.S. Information Solutions (USIS) - Provides consumer and commercial information solutions to businesses in the U.S. including online information, decisioning technology solutions, identity management services, analytical services, e-commerce fraud and charge back protection services, portfolio management services, mortgage information and marketing services. The company provides products to consumers in the U.S. to enable them to understand and monitor their credit and help protect their identity. The company also sells consumer credit information to resellers who may combine its information with other information to provide direct-to-consumer monitoring, reports and scores.
International - Provides products and services similar to those available in the USIS operating segment but with variations by geographic region. The company also provides information, technology and services to support debt collections and recovery management. In addition, the company provides products to consumers in Canada, the U.K., Australia and Chile to enable them to understand and monitor their credit and help protect their identity. This operating segment consists of the company's the Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and Canada business units. It also includes the company's joint ventures in Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brazil.
Business Strategy
The key elements of the company's strategy are to leverage its Equifax cloud capabilities and technology investment to accelerate innovation, new products and growth; leverage and expand its differentiated portfolio of data assets; foster a culture of putting customers and consumers first; execute strategic acquisitions that expand its data portfolio and capabilities and drive revenue growth; and build a world-class Equifax team by investing in talent to drive its strategy and promote a culture of innovation.
Markets and Clients
The company's products and services serve clients across a wide range of verticals, including mortgage, financial services, employers, government (state, federal and local), automotive, commercial, identity and fraud, consumer, resellers, healthcare, telecommunications, retail and insurance. The company also serves consumers directly. The company's revenue streams are highly diversified with its largest client providing approximately 2% of total revenue.
The company markets its products and services primarily through its own direct sales organization that is structured around sales teams that focus on client segments typically aligned by vertical markets and geography. In the U.S., the vertical market sales teams for the Mortgage, Financial, Government and Automotive markets sell products from both the USIS and Workforce Solutions business units. Sales groups are based in field offices located throughout the U.S., including its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and in the countries where the company has operations. The company also markets its products and services through indirect channels, including alliance partners, joint ventures and other resellers. In addition, the company markets its products directly to consumers through e-commerce channels. Revenue from international clients, including end users and resellers, amounted to 23% of the company's total revenue in 2023.
Products and Services
The company's products and services help its clients make more informed decisions with higher levels of confidence by leveraging a broad array of data assets. Analytics are used to derive insights from the data that are most relevant for the client's decisioning needs. The data and insights are then processed through proprietary software and generally transmitted to the client's operating system to execute the decision.
Workforce Solutions
Workforce Solutions operates in the U.S. through two business units:
Verification Services: Verification Services include employment, income, educational history, criminal justice data, healthcare professional licensure and sanctions verification services. The company's online verification services enable third-party verifiers, including various governmental agencies, mortgage originators, credit card and automotive lenders and pre-employment screeners, to verify the employee's employment status and income information. The company also offers an offline manual verification service, which expands employment verification to locate data outside its existing automated database. In addition, Verification Services administers a comprehensive source of incarceration, justice and people-based risk intelligence data.
Employer Services: These services are aimed at reducing the cost of the human resources function of businesses through a broad suite of services, including assisting with employment tax matters designed to reduce the cost of unemployment claims through effective claims representation and management and efficient processing to better manage the tax rate that employers are assessed for unemployment taxes; comprehensive services designed to research the availability of employment-related tax credits (e.g., federal work opportunity tax credits and employee retention credits), and to process the necessary filings and assist the client in obtaining the tax credit; tax form management services (which include initial distribution, reissuance and correction of W-2 and 1095-C forms); I-9 management services designed to help clients electronically comply with the immigration laws that require employers to complete an I-9 form for each new hire; immigration case management services; onboarding services using an online platform to complete the new hire process for employees of corporations and government agencies; and identity theft protection services. In addition, the company provides software and services to employers to assist in their compliance with the Affordable Care Act.
The Work Number is the company's key repository of employment and income data serving its Verification Services business unit. The company relies on payroll data received from over three million organizations to regularly update the database. The updates occur as employers and other data contributors transmit data electronically to Equifax from their payroll systems. Employers provide this data to the company so that it can handle verification requests on behalf of each employer. The company uses this data to provide automated employment and income verification services to verifiers, who are lenders, employers/background screeners and government agencies.
The fees the company charges for services in these two business units are generally on a per transaction basis. The Work Number database held about 168 million current and 657 million total (current and historic) employment records at December 31, 2023.
Workforce Solutions has established an income and employment verification service in Canada, Australia and the U.K., known as Verification Exchange. At present, revenues from these services in all three regions mentioned are insignificant.
USIS
USIS provides consumer and commercial information solutions to businesses in the U.S. through three product and service lines, as follows:
Online Information Solutions: Online Information Solutions' products are derived from multiple large and comprehensive databases of consumer and commercial information that the company maintains about individual consumers and businesses, including credit history, current credit status, payment history, address and other identity information. The company's clients utilize the information and analytical insights it provides to make decisions for a broad range of financial and business purposes, such as whether, and on what terms, to approve auto loans or credit card applications, and whether to allow a consumer or a business to open a new utility or telephone account. In addition, this information is used by the company's clients for cross-selling additional products to existing customers, improving their underwriting and risk management decisions, and authenticating and verifying consumer and business identities. The company also sells consumer and credit information to resellers who may combine its information with other information to provide services to the financial, mortgage, fraud and identity management, and other end-user markets. The company's software platforms and analytical capabilities can integrate all types of information, including third-party and client information, to enhance the insights and decisioning process to help further mitigate the risk of granting credit, predict the risk of bankruptcy, indicate the applicant's risk potential for account delinquency, ensure the identity of the consumer and reduce exposure to fraud. Identity verification and fraud management products combine financial and non-financial identity information and activity to provide identity verification and authentication services, to assist customers in assessing the risk of loss due to account takeover, identity theft and chargebacks. These risk management services enable the company's clients to monitor risks and opportunities and proactively manage their portfolios.
Online Information Solutions' clients access products through a full range of electronic distribution mechanisms, including direct real-time access, which facilitates instant decisions. The company also develops and hosts customized applications that enhance the decision-making process for its clients. These decisioning technology applications assist with a wide variety of decisioning activities, including determining pre-approved offers, cross-selling of various products, determining deposit amounts for telephone and utility companies and verifying the identity of their customers. The company has also compiled commercial databases regarding businesses in the U.S., which include loan, credit card, public records and leasing history data, trade accounts receivable performance and Secretary of State and Securities and Exchange Commission registration information. The company offers scoring and analytical services that provide additional information to help mitigate the credit risk assumed by its clients.
Online Information Solutions also includes the company's consumer solutions product suite that gives the U.S. consumers information to enable them to understand and monitor their credit and to monitor and help protect their identity. Equifax products offer monitoring features for consumers who are concerned about identity theft, including credit report monitoring from all three credit bureaus, internet scanning, bank account monitoring and lost wallet support. Products may also be available indirectly through relationships with business partners who distribute the company's products or provide these services to their employees or customers. The company also sells consumer credit information to resellers who may combine its information with other information to provide direct-to-consumer monitoring, reports and scores.
Mortgage Solutions: The company's Mortgage Solutions products, offered in the U.S., consist of specialized credit reports that combine information from the three major consumer credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) into a single merged credit report in an online format, commonly referred to as a tri-merge report. Mortgage lenders use these tri-merge reports in making their mortgage underwriting decisions. Additionally, the company offers services designed to alert lenders to changes in a consumer's credit status during the underwriting period and securitized portfolio risk assessment services for evaluating inherent portfolio risk.
Financial Marketing Services: The company's Financial Marketing Services products utilize consumer and commercial financial information enabling its clients to more effectively manage their marketing efforts, including targeting and segmentation, to identify and acquire new clients for their products and services; to develop portfolio strategies to minimize risk and maximize profitability; and to realize additional revenue from existing customers through more effective cross-selling of additional products and services. The company's products are also utilized by customers to support digital identity verification and fraud detection and protection. These products utilize information derived from consumer and commercial information, including credit, income, asset, liquidity, net worth and spending activity, which also support many of its Online Information Solutions' products. These data assets broaden the understanding of consumer and business financial potential and opportunity, which can further drive high value decisioning and targeting solutions for the company's clients. The company also provides account review services, which assist its clients in managing their existing customers and prescreen services that help its clients identify new opportunities with their customers. Clients for these products primarily include institutions in the banking, brokerage, retail, insurance and mortgage industries as well as companies primarily focused on digital and interactive marketing.
International
The International operating segment includes the company's the Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and Canada business units. It also includes the company's joint ventures in Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brazil. These business units offer products that are similar to those available in the USIS operating segment, but with variations by geographic region. In some jurisdictions, data sources tend to rely more heavily on government agencies than in the U.S. The company also offers specialized services that help its customers better manage risk in their consumer portfolios. This operating segment's products and services generate revenue in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Mexico, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, the U.K. and Uruguay. The company also maintains support operations in Chile, Costa Rica, India and Ireland. The company has investments in consumer and/or commercial credit information companies through joint ventures in Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brazil. The company also provides information, technology and services to support debt collections and recovery management in the Asia Pacific, Europe, Canada and Latin America.
The Asia Pacific: The company's the Asia Pacific operation provides consumer and commercial information solutions products, marketing products, employment verification services and consumer credit protection products. The company offers a full range of products, generated from credit records and other data, including credit reporting and scoring, decisioning technology, risk management, identity management, authentication and fraud detection services. The company's consumer and commercial products are the primary source of revenue in each of the countries in which it operates and includes credit reporting, decisioning tools and risk management services. The company also provides information, technology and services to support talent management, as well as debt collections and recovery management. Additionally, the company provides a variety of consumer and commercial marketing products generated from information databases, including business profile analysis, business prospect lists and database management. The countries in which the company operates include Australia, New Zealand and India, as well as Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore through joint ventures.
Europe: The company's Europe operation provides information solutions, fraud detection services, debt collection services and marketing products. Information solutions and fraud products are generated from information that it maintains and includes credit reporting, monitoring and scoring, asset information, risk management, identity management and authentication services and fraud detection and modeling services. These products are sold in the U.K. and Spain. Limited marketing products are available in the U.K. and to a lesser extent, in Spain. The company also provides information, technology and services to support debt collections and recovery management in the U.K. and Spain. In the U.K., this includes a contract to provide these services to the U.K. government.
Latin America: The company's Latin America operation provides consumer and commercial information solutions products, marketing products and consumer credit protection products. The company offers a full range of products, generated from credit records that it maintains, including credit reporting and scoring, decisioning technology, risk management, identity management, authentication and fraud detection services. The company's consumer products are the primary source of revenue in each of the countries in this region in which it operates, with the exception of Mexico where debt management services constitute the core of the business. The company also offers various commercial products, which include credit reporting, decisioning tools and risk management services, in the countries it serves. The company also provides information, technology and services to support debt collections and recovery management. Additionally, the company provides a variety of consumer and commercial marketing products generated from its credit information databases, including business profile analysis, business prospect lists and database management. The countries in this region in which the company operates include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. The company also has an investment in a consumer credit information company through a joint venture in Brazil.
Canada: Similar to the USIS business units, the company's Canada operation offers products derived from the credit information that it maintains about individual consumers and businesses. The company offers many products in Canada, including credit reporting, monitoring and scoring, consumer and commercial marketing, risk management, fraud detection and modeling services, identity management and authentication services, together with certain of its decisioning products that facilitate pre-approved offers of credit and automate a variety of credit decisions. The company also offers commercial credit solutions, which help businesses manage financial and credit risk and gain insights on customers, markets and industry groups using its commercial data assets. The company also provides data, technology and services to facilitate the search of land data and process real estate transactions in Canada.
Competition
The company's competitors vary widely in size and in the nature of the products and services they offer. Sources of competition are numerous and include the following:
Competition in the Verification Services market, for both the U.S. and key International segments of Australia, Canada and the U.K., includes employers who manage verifications in-house, lenders who obtain verifications directly from employers, and other online and offline verification companies, such as Experian, Thomas & Company and niche providers. Competition in the U.S. Employer Services market is diverse and includes in-house management of such services or the outsourcing of one or more of such services to other third-party outsourced providers like Experian and Thomas & Company; human resources consulting firms such as Mercer and Towers Watson; human resources management services providers, such as Workday, Oracle and SAP; payroll processors such as ADP, Paychex and Ceridian; accounting firms such as PwC and EY; and hundreds of smaller companies that provide one or multiple offerings that compete with the company's Employer Services business.
Competition for the company's credit information solutions and direct-to-consumer solutions products varies by both application and industry, but generally includes two global consumer credit reporting companies, Experian and TransUnion, both of which offer a product suite similar to its credit information solutions. In the U.S., LifeLock is a national provider of personal identity theft protection service. Also, there are competitors offering free credit scores including Credit Karma in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., ClearScore in the U.K., and Credit Simple and Credit Savvy in Australia. The company competes with Fair Isaac Corporation with respect to certain of its analytical tools and solutions and LexisNexis in identity and fraud and other solutions.
Competition for the company's commercial solutions products primarily includes Experian, Dun & Bradstreet and Moody's, and providers of these services in the international markets it serves.
Technology and Intellectual Property
The company relies on various intellectual property laws, confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions to protect strategic or valuable intellectual property developed in connection with its business. The company registers, and applies for registration of, certain intellectual property in the U.S. and several foreign countries under applicable patent laws. The company also registers and relies on common law rights, where applicable, to protect trademarks, service marks, logos and internet domain names in the U.S. and in many foreign countries, the most important of which include Equifax, The Work Number, Interconnect, Equifax Ignite, and variations thereof. Certain Company trademarks, including the Equifax trademark, contribute to the success of the company's business, and their loss could have a significant negative impact on it.
Governmental Regulation
The most significant U.S. laws include but are not limited to, the Fair Credit Reporting Act; the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; the Federal Trade Commission Act; the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 or Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act; the Credit Repair Organizations Act; New York State Department of Financial Services; the California Consumer Privacy Act; Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act; the Colorado Privacy Act; the Connecticut Data Privacy Act; the Utah Consumer Privacy Act; the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In the U.K., the company is subject to a regulatory framework that provides for regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority (the FCA). The company's core credit reporting and debt collections services and recovery management businesses in the U.K. are subject to FCA supervision. In addition to regulation by the FCA, the company is subject to regulation by the U.K. Information Commissioner's Office, which focuses on upholding information rights in the public interest and the protection of data privacy for individuals.
In the U.K., the company is subject to provisions that are broadly equivalent to the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation. These equivalent provisions were adopted into the U.K. laws following the end of the transition period that followed the U.K.'s exit from the EU.
In Europe, the company is subject to the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is an extremely broad and sweeping privacy law. The GDPR establishes multiple privacy and data protection requirements that are more specific and comprehensive than those of the U.S. and most other countries where Equifax operates.
In Australia, the company is subject to regulatory oversight by various agencies. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) is the agency with direct responsibility for administering the Australian Privacy Principles (which relate to the collection, holding, use and disclosure of personal information) and Part IIIA of the Privacy Act 1988 (which regulates credit reporting). The company's credit reporting business, Equifax Information Services and Solutions, is a member of an external dispute resolution scheme, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, which has been approved by the OAIC to handle privacy and credit reporting complaints and make binding determinations. The OAIC can register codes of practice under the Privacy Act 1988; and has registered the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2014. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is the agency responsible for enforcing the Competition and Consumer Act of 2010 and related legislation concerning consumer protection and competition. The Australian Retail Credit Association is a credit and credit reporting industry self-regulatory body, which administers principles and standards for the exchange of credit data between industry participants. Equifax Australasia Credit Ratings Pty Limited (one of the company's Australian subsidiaries) holds an Australia Financial Services License, which allows it to provide general advice to wholesale clients by issuing a credit rating; and has been approved in New Zealand as a rating agency by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand under section 86 of the Non-bank Deposit Takers Act of 2013 (NZ).
History
Equifax Inc. was founded in 1899. The company was incorporated in 1913.
