Experian reaffirms commitment to help consumers and businesses in India during COVID-19 pandemic

Mumbai, June 17, 2020: Experian, one of India’s leading data, analytics and decisioning companies and credit bureaus, has developed multiple resources and services to help businesses and consumers across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sathya Kalyanasundaram, Country Head and Managing Director, Experian India, says: “At Experian, we are committed to helping the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) industry, businesses and consumers across India. The pandemic has led to a large increase in consumers going online, which has led to a potential rise in fraud. Experian is providing complimentary resources for consumers to monitor and protect their financial health. We have also introduced solutions that will empower businesses to be resilient whilst ensuring continuity during these challenging times.”

Experian is supporting consumers and businesses in India with these resources:

Free credit reports for consumers on Experian India’s website: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently announced a moratorium for all borrowers on repayment of all term loans, including credit card dues, from March 1st till August 31st, 2020. Experian India is helping consumers manage their financial anxiety by offering free credit reports on its website. As mandated by RBI, credit bureaus offer consumers access to one free credit report every year; however, Experian is now providing free credit reports throughout the year. This means consumers can access their Experian credit report from www.experian.in every month to track their credit score for free.

Power Cube: Power Cube is a business intelligence platform that makes credit bureau data more accessible, understandable and insightful for businesses. The platform provides in-depth information for analysing the retail and commercial lending markets and the flexibility to look at sub-segments and geo-analytics trends based on user objectives. In these challenging times, the platform caters to the need of increased market intelligence and risk calibration. Power Cube enables better estimates of loss rates and prioritisation of portfolio actions. It has also enabled speedy realignment in acquisition and distribution strategy by identifying new zones with high credit opportunities.

Resources and initiatives to support businesses and consumers in Asia Pacific:

Next Level of Customer Experience & Digital Fraud Management

Data from GlobalWebIndex shows spikes in digital activity, particularly in countries that have seen the strictest COVID-19 lockdowns including India and Singapore. Businesses are under increasing pressure to move to digital channels to source for customers and manage them, given current social distancing mandates.  As this trend is likely to continue, Experian is providing businesses with support via cloud-based and on-premise solutions. Instances of fraud have generally increased during economic downturns. The increase in digital processes leads to a higher chance of third-party fraud, specifically account takeover. In particular, the less tech-savvy group will be vulnerable to phishing attacks.

CrossCore, an integrated digital identity and fraud risk platform, has been launched by Experian across Asia Pacific to enable businesses to respond swiftly to such emerging fraud threats. It delivers a better way to modify strategies quickly, detect fraud quickly, improve compliance, and enhance the customer experience.

Digital Hardship Management

There is likely to be increased stress on the collections processes for banks and financial services providers during the pandemic as customer profiles change, and a need to move towards more automated and digital processes to control costs and enable customers to better utilise self-serve channels.

Banks and financial institutions need to continue supporting consumers and this requires debt management processes to be consumer-friendly, whilst ensuring that budgets and resources are managed. Banks will need to invest in their collections processes to improve their collections strategies and mechanisms particularly in the current climate.

Experian offers cutting edge tools and capabilities globally to enable banks to decide on the best strategy and action to engage with their consumers. This includes the analytical capability to model consumer actions based on additional information and software solutions, so banks can implement these strategies both on-site and in a cloud environment.

Customer Management in Economic Downturn

With potential job losses and businesses at risk during the pandemic, customer profiles will change rapidly, and banks need to manage their existing customers as a top priority. The ongoing economic uncertainties present a risk to lenders as even a small change to an individual’s income could affect their solvency. Banks need to identify, monitor and predict changes in customer profiles to assess vulnerable populations. Experian is partnering with banks to help with customer engagement and retention, whilst ensuring resources and budgets are kept in check.

Risk Calibration & Forecasting

The constantly evolving situation means that organisations need to mitigate credit risk and evaluate capital and liquidity. Experian is assisting banks in understanding how their stress scenarios were calculated in the past to prepare for the future – monitoring and benchmarking to quantify the effects of consumer distress and low interest rates. This will enable banks to redevelop and adjust current models to account for customer profile changes, so they can calibrate risk.

Other ways Experian has been helping consumers and businesses in Asia Pacific:

• Singapore: In line with Infocomm Media Development Authority’s ‘Stay Healthy, Go Digital’ campaign calling on businesses to embrace digitalisation and be ready to address business continuity challenges, Experian is providing complimentary credit monitoring services for 500 businesses until 15 July.
• Thailand, Vietnam and Sri Lanka: Experian is working with existing telco partners across Thailand, Vietnam and Sri Lanka to help subscribers stay connected. The telcos are providing subscribers with temporary increased credit limits, reduced fees and relaxing the eligibility criteria to allow more subscribers to have airtime advance. Close to 130,000 subscribers have benefited from reduced fees.