Data management

Where can you go to unlock all the missing information from your customer records? Credit bureaus are a useful source for assessing customer risk and creditworthiness, but don’t overlook other datasets: Experian offers a wide range of records that can be used to both validate and deepen the data you already hold.

Open Banking unlocks access to a wider financial picture of your customers, but how do you convert all that raw data into meaningful insight? One solution is to harness algorithms that can identify and categorise transactions to reveal spending patterns and uncover potentially vulnerable customers. One example is Experian’s Categorisation as a Service (CaaS), which can be used to analyse both your own transactional data as well as consumer-consented data from Open Banking.

A customer’s financial data tells only part of their story. Look for ways to add colour and depth to the view of your customers by calling on services that are capable of tapping into demographic, lifestyle and non-financial product information as well. Experian’s Open Data Platform (ODP) has a repository of over 150 API endpoints that you can use to connect to numerous data sources.

The best data bureaus will allow you to mix their rich sources of data with your own, so you can link records and build a more complete picture of your customers and prospects. To avoid errors, look for a tool that can accurately match the right customer to the right records. Experian’s ExPin references over 2 billion pieces of data to minimise duplicate records, for instance.

You’ve created a detailed picture of your customers, but how do you go about using that information to make better decisions? Consider the benefits of an automated analytics system that can process all that extra data in seconds to reveal the insights you need. Experian Ascend is a good solution for this. It’s a complete analytics platform that lets you build a range of scorecard, benchmarking and customer management analysis in real time.

Step one of any data profiling exercise involves identifying and correcting mistakes. This is then followed by standardising and managing records. Both steps require a solution that can automatically verify contact details, weed out duplicate records so that you don’t send multiple communications, and discover the links between different sets of data. A suitable data partner can help you streamline this process.

Data profiling offers the perfect opportunity to identify gaps in your records. Once identified, you can use third-party sources, such as those provided by Experian’s Data Management services, to populate them with meaningful data. Going forward, this provides a broader picture making smarter, more personalised business decisions more straightforward.

The simplest way to profile your data is using a trusted tool or platform that does everything from audit your existing data to adding in additional resources. Rather than go to the expense of building such a tool yourself, look for an online self-service portal that can be set up and deployed with the minimal of training. Experian’s Aperture Data Studio is a good place to start.

Does your organisation share a Single Customer View (SCV) of your data, or are departments siloed with each having an incomplete view? When bringing data together, look for a single solution that can overcome the three largest hurdles in creating an SCV: poor data quality, siloed departments, and the difficulty of linking different technologies and systems together. Experian’s Link, which is designed specifically to unite legacy systems, is one such solution.

68% of organisations claim that increasing volumes of data makes it difficult to meet regulatory obligations. That’s why it’s important your data profiling platform produces cleansed and enriched data that remains compliant. Aperture Data Studio not only complies with data regulations, but also makes it easy to prepare for statutory reporting.

Where can you go to get the breadth and depth of information required to make accurate, responsible lending decisions? Solutions that leverage shared data sources such as Open Banking are ideal. Experian adds over 750 million records into its consumer credit bureau each month, drawing from over 600 of the largest and most up-to-date sources in the UK, so it makes sense to consult them before deciding on new data solutions.

How do you build a picture of someone whose file is thin? How do you differentiate customers who have the same credit score to offer them suitable products and services? Identifying past behaviour to help predict future needs is the key, but that requires access to a wider pool of data. A solution like Experian’s Trended Data gives you this insight enabling you to make more informed and fairer decisions.

When a customer applies for credit, they don’t want to be left hanging around waiting for an answer. At the same time, you need to be sure that they can afford any loan or credit you offer them – not just now but going forward, too. Experian’s Affordability Solutions provide you with immediate and ongoing access to most UK customer current accounts, enabling you to make fast but smart lending decisions.

You need to make sure your business keeps pace with your customers’ rapidly changing financial circumstances and adapt accordingly. Look for a tool that can re-evaluate your strategies in line with economic and financial changes. A solution like Experian Retro can help with this because it draws up-to-date and accurate data from the Live Credit Bureau.

You need to keep an eye on your customers’ changing financial circumstances, so it makes sense to incorporate this functionality as an end-to-end solution that can be called upon at every stage of the customer journey. A cloud-based decisioning platform like Experian’s PowerCurve allows you to monitor your entire portfolio and receive alerts, informed by your policies, when a customer’s changing circumstances suggest further action may be required.

Increasing numbers of customers are financially vulnerable. The sooner you can step in, the sooner you can formulate strategies to prevent them from falling further into arrears. A tool like Experian’s DebtSense can help. It’s designed to gather key insights from Open Banking and feed them through an intelligent rules engine to produce tailored recommendations on whether to extend breaks or restart payments.

IFRS 9 regulations require all lenders to add more analytical rigour to expected credit loss (ECL) calculations. This can put a huge strain on your organisation in terms of cost and resources. Fortunately, employing a solution that can use economic scenarios and credit data to calculate a more accurate ECL figure allows you to side-step these problems. It can also avoid you making unnecessarily high provisions and undermining your strategic planning.

Where are the next opportunities in the UK going to come from? The answer lies in regional statistics. Armed with the right stats, such as Experian’s range of Regional Economic Forecasts, you can identify hotspots of new economic activity, rank performance by region and gain access to data from a wide range of sectors.

44% of the UK business population suffered a serious revenue impact due to Covid-19. Find out how that’s affected your customer base with a solution like Experian’s Portfolio Stress Dashboard. This type of tool can quickly analyse the financial longevity of companies in your portfolio, identify those in at-risk sectors as well as those operating in spheres of growth.

The quality of your forecasts relies on more than simply having access to the right data. If you lack the money or resources to interrogate that data yourself, look for an on-demand platform that can build and evaluate a range of predictive models to find the perfect one for your strategic needs. Experian’s Ascend Intelligence Services has developed two products specifically to build, monitor and optimise predictive economic models, then calibrate your scorecards from them.

Once you’ve created your predictive models, how do you use them to help make decisions? The answer is to use an integrated solution that can deploy these models throughout the entire customer lifecycle. In the world of Experian, for example, models created with Ascend can be easily deployed with PowerCurve, the company’s automated decision-making platform.

If you’re actively seeking out new investment or lending opportunities, then you need access to a vast range of accurate cross-channel contact data. Experian’s BusinessView is one option that can help. This solution can enrich your data with details from over 5 million companies, verify existing email and phone contacts to ensure your messages get through. It also offers hundreds of variables across different categories to help you produce highly refined lists of prospects.

Businesses looking to grow through acquisitions and mergers need to know exactly who they’re dealing with. Make sure you perform a full check using a solution that has access to all the information you need. Experian’s MarketIQ, for example, offers the most comprehensive range of corporate, company, financial and business information on a single platform. It can even reveal deals made between different companies.

A business’s finances are always in flux – it opens and closes accounts, makes payments and uses credit limits. The wider transactions are spread, however, the harder it can be to get a complete picture of its financial behaviour. Risk score products allow you to predict which businesses are most at risk of failure or falling into arrears. Experian’s Commercial Risk Scores solutions can also predict insolvencies and identify the most at-risk balances within your portfolio.