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107-664: Equifax Inc. is an American multinational consumer credit reporting agency headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and is one of the three largest consumer credit reporting agencies , along with Experian and TransUnion (together known as the "Big Three"). Equifax collects and aggregates information on over 800 million individual consumers and more than 88 million businesses worldwide. In addition to credit and demographic data and services to business, Equifax sells credit monitoring and fraud prevention services directly to consumers. Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in

214-412: A business intelligence/DW-solution, the specific problems associated with semi-structured and unstructured data must be accommodated for as well as those for the structured data. There are several challenges to developing BI with semi-structured data. According to Inmon & Nesavich, some of those are: To solve problems with searchability and assessment of data, it is necessary to know something about

321-476: A company might only use such a document a single time. Because of the way it is produced and stored, this information is either unstructured or semi-structured . The management of semi-structured data is an unsolved problem in the information technology industry. According to projections from Gartner (2003), white-collar workers spend 30–40% of their time searching, finding, and assessing unstructured data. BI uses both structured and unstructured data. The former

428-561: A credit reporting agency, Small Business Financial Exchange, Inc. (SBFE) is a trade association for small business lenders from all types of industries. SBFE gathers and protects small business payment data for its Members to help build a true and accurate picture of small business then facilitates the exchange of that data to specific business credit reporting agencies that have a Certified Vendor licensing agreement with SBFE. SBFE only allows business credit reporting agencies to license its Member’s data for risk management purposes, marketing use of

535-486: A federal judge in Atlanta awarded class-action attorneys representing consumers approximately $ 77.5 million, suggesting that individual consumers might expect to receive around six or seven dollars. In July 2020, Equifax reported that, after purchasing Ansonia Credit Data (Ansonia), a major source of consumer credit, payments, and invoice receivables (AR) data used by financial companies and other borrowers and businesses in

642-550: A federal legislation called the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) that must be abided by the credit reporting agencies. Credit bureaus share consumer information in the form of a credit report to third parties with whom a consumer has given permission to. This includes banks, credit unions, lenders, credit card companies, and even landlords. These third parties use their credit report to help them make decisions about

749-485: A known exploit on one of Equifax' web servers that had yet to be updated to access the credit records of more than 140 million Americans as well as some British and Canadian citizens before the breach was detected and shut down. Equifax disclosed the breach on September 7, 2017, after determining the means and scope of the breach. The event was considered "one of the biggest data breaches in history." Several consumers filed lawsuits in small-claims court against Equifax due to

856-693: A loan. Interest rates are not the same for everyone, but instead can be based on risk-based pricing , a form of price discrimination based on the different expected risks of different borrowers, as set out in their credit rating . Consumers with poor credit repayment histories or court adjudicated debt obligations like tax liens or bankruptcies will pay a higher annual interest rate than consumers who don't have these factors. Additionally, decision-makers in areas unrelated to consumer credit, including employment screening and underwriting of property and casualty insurance, increasingly depend on credit records, as studies have shown that such records have predictive value. At

963-451: A more complete risk profile of the customer (natural persons, unincorporated entities, corporate entities or any other entity). The ICS tend to aggregates credit related information among participating members to provide the credit providers with a more complete risk profile of the customer. Participating members disclose credit related information to and obtain information from the CRA to assess

1070-434: A number, a number which has been assigned to all members of society reflecting information about that person which is unknown. Accordingly, there can be no definition at present of what information credit repositories collect or even what the use of that information is or what it reflects. These questions can only be answered if the algorithms were publicized and expert statisticians were permitted to examine them and improve on

1177-591: A person familiar with the breach believed this early-March intrusion may have been carried out by the same party that breached Equifax's computer systems again in May. According to Bloomberg, Equifax enlisted Mandiant (owned by FireEye, Inc. ) to assist in investigating the March attack. The same cybersecurity firm was hired following the May–July breach. Between May and July 2017, currently unidentified hackers were able to use

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1284-405: A proposed class-action lawsuit against Equifax, accusing the company of monopolizing the market for electronic income and employment verification services, allegedly leading to higher prices. Consumer credit reporting agency A consumer reporting agency is an organization providing information on individuals' borrowing and bill-paying habits. Such credit information institutions reduce

1391-407: A secret. Therefore, people are called on to abide by a secret law. At least two things need to be examined: First is that the operation of a more general "chilling effect" that imposing a non disclosed law may have and; Secondly the social effects of discrimination, which take an entirely new light in the context of no longer discriminating against race creed color age or religion, but on the basis of

1498-478: A subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial as a result of this reverse acquisition merger (See Certegy and Fidelity National Information Services for further information) . In October 2010, Equifax announced it was acquiring Anakam, an identity verification software company headquartered in San Diego, California , which invented and pioneered SMS (text-message based) two-factor authentication . Terms of

1605-560: A topical focus on company competitors. If understood broadly, competitive intelligence can be considered as a subset of business intelligence. Business intelligence and business analytics are sometimes used interchangeably, but there are alternate definitions. Thomas Davenport , professor of information technology and management at Babson College argues that business intelligence should be divided into querying , reporting , Online analytical processing (OLAP), an "alerts" tool, and business analytics. In this definition, business analytics

1712-575: A way as to guide action towards a desired goal." In 1989, Howard Dresner (later a Gartner analyst) proposed business intelligence as an umbrella term to describe "concepts and methods to improve business decision making by using fact-based support systems." It was not until the late 1990s that this usage was widespread. According to Solomon Negash and Paul Gray, business intelligence (BI) can be defined as systems that combine: with analysis to evaluate complex corporate and competitive information for presentation to planners and decision makers, with

1819-521: A year of supervised release, and was fined $ 55,000.00 and ordered to pay restitution of $ 117,117.61 in June 2019. An Equifax manager, Sudhakar Reddy Bonthu, also pleaded guilty to insider trading and received a sentence of 8 months of home confinement. In July 2019, The New York Times , the New York Post and other media reported Equifax had agreed to pay approximately $ 650 million to settle with

1926-483: A year to ensure they are accurate. In addition to providing credit information, these services have become authoritative sources of identity information against which people can be verified using an identity verification service and knowledge-based authentication . Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited ( CIBIL ), India's first Credit Information Bureau was established by the Reserve Bank of India to improve

2033-541: Is a national alternative credit bureau . Incorporated in March 2002, PRBC enables consumers to self-enroll and build a positive credit file by reporting their on-time payments (such as rent, utilities, cable, and phone) that are not automatically reported to the three traditional credit bureaus. In the U.S., there are six business or commercial bureau repositories (in alphabetical order): Cortera, Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Business, Equifax Commercial, PayNet, and Southeastern Association of Credit Management (SACM). While not

2140-728: Is a private equity company established in 2006, by all Iranian banks (private and public banks) and other financial institutions such as leasing and insurance companies, operating in the Islamic Republic of Iran within the context of the current banking act and regulations issued by Iran Ministry of economic Affairs and Finance and Central Bank of Iran. The main Objective of ICS is to help credit providers make improved lending decisions quickly and more objectively. To achieve this, ICS intends to aggregate credit related information among participating members to provide credit providers with

2247-619: Is alleged that the hearings prompted the Retail Credit Company to change its name to Equifax in 1975 to improve its image. Equifax expanded into commercial credit reports on companies in the United States, Canada and the UK, where it came into competition with companies such as Dun & Bradstreet and Experian . The insurance reporting was phased out. The company also had a division selling specialist credit information to

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2354-569: Is believed to be the largest award in an individual case under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. An Equifax spokesperson said that Equifax is considering appealing the jury's verdict. A federal judge reduced the award to $ 1.62 million in 2014. In 2014, Equifax and Heartland Bank were sued by Kimberly Haman of the St. Louis area for reporting she was dead. A Heartland Bank spokesperson said the bank "immediately investigated and contacted

2461-454: Is easy to search, and the latter contains a large quantity of the information needed for analysis and decision-making. Because of the difficulty of properly searching, finding, and assessing unstructured or semi-structured data, organizations may not draw upon these vast reservoirs of information, which could influence a particular decision, task, or project. This can ultimately lead to poorly informed decision-making. Therefore, when designing

2568-409: Is the application of generative AI techniques, such as large language models , in business intelligence. This combination facilitates data analysis and enables users to interact with data more intuitively, generating actionable insights through natural language queries. Microsoft Copilot was for example integrated into the business analytics tool Power BI . Business intelligence can be applied to

2675-442: Is the subset of BI focusing on statistics, prediction, and optimization, rather than the reporting functionality. Business operations can generate a very large amount of data in the form of e-mails, memos, notes from call-centers, news, user groups, chats, reports, web-pages, presentations, image-files, video-files, and marketing material. According to Merrill Lynch , more than 85% of all business information exists in these forms;

2782-410: Is very concerning. There is intrinsic vulnerability in collecting and storing personal financial information, and we need to have a meaningful discussion on how to protect and limit access to it." According to an October 2017 report from Motherboard , around December 2016, a security researcher examining Equifax's servers found that an online portal, created for Equifax employees only, was accessible to

2889-470: The Annualcreditreport.com website incorporates data from U.S. Equifax credit records. Equifax also offers fraud prevention products based on device fingerprinting such as "FraudIQ Authenticate Device." Equifax also offers a credit protection service, called Equifax Protect. According to senator Michael Crapo , "The amount of data that the private industry and Government collect and store

2996-842: The Barueri -headquartered credit bureau, Boa Vista Serviços for $ 596 million, starting to trade on the B3 in São Paulo , under the symbol EFXB31. Equifax primarily operates in the business-to-business sector, selling consumer credit and insurance reports and related analytics to businesses in a range of industries. Business customers include retailers , insurance firms, healthcare providers , utilities, government agencies, as well as banks , credit unions , personal and specialty finance companies and other financial institutions. Equifax sells businesses credit reports, analytics, demographic data, and software. Credit reports provide detailed information on

3103-644: The Consumer Credit Act 1974 . In Canada, there are two credit bureaus (also known as credit reporting agencies): Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada. They are private companies that collect information about a consumer’s credit accounts, payment history, and other information such as debts sold to a collection agency, and bankruptcies. Credit bureaus in Canada gather this information from lenders and creditors who report it to them. However, it’s important to note that not all lenders and creditors report to

3210-679: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to resolve investigations by several state attorneys general, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau , the FTC, and a consumer class-action lawsuit related to the data breach. By September 2019, however, Equifax had added qualifications and "hurdles" to its claims process which put in doubt whether the previously announced cash settlement of $ 125 per affected consumer would actually be awarded. On 19 December 2019,

3317-1621: The Paydex score from Dun & Bradstreet , the solvency score from Infolegale, the Risk Rating from Creditsafe , the Experian Intelliscore , the CPR Score from Cortera , the GCS score from Global Credit Services, SkyMinder service from CRIF and the CIC Score and NACM National Trade Credit Report from the National Association of Credit Management . TransUnion , Equifax , and Rapid Ratings International are also examples of commercial credit reporting agencies. Business intelligence Business intelligence ( BI ) consists of strategies, methodologies, and technologies used by enterprises for data analysis and management of business information . Common functions of BI technologies include reporting , online analytical processing , analytics , dashboard development, data mining , process mining , complex event processing , business performance management , benchmarking , text mining , predictive analytics , and prescriptive analytics . BI tools can handle large amounts of structured and sometimes unstructured data to help organizations identify, develop, and otherwise create new strategic business opportunities . They aim to allow for

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3424-574: The Saudi Central Bank . The idea goes back into 1998 when national commercial banks and SAMA thought of establishing a Saudi credit bureau offering consumer and commercial information. Meetings were held for this purpose and officials were assigned to coordinate with the World Bank to consider existing international experiences for some countries to establish a credit bureau based on methodological and knowledge approaches to contribute to

3531-490: The U.S. Internal Revenue Service was reported to have suspended a $ 7.2 million contract with Equifax as a result of the attack. In 1982, Retail Credit Company was criticized for collecting "...facts, statistics, inaccuracies and rumors... about virtually every phase of a person's life; his marital troubles, jobs, school history, childhood, sex life, and political activities." The company was charged with rewarding its employees for collecting negative information on consumers in

3638-528: The oversight of consumer reporting agencies and those that furnish data to them. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has oversight for the consumer reporting agencies. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks with regard to the data they furnish consumer reporting agencies. Most U.S. consumer credit information is collected and kept by

3745-444: The 1930s, automobile, finance, petroleum, and direct sales companies sought standardized credit reports and pricing from the more than 1,000 credit bureaus. An antitrust petition was filed in 1933. More flexible card files and widespread telephone usage made credit rating books obsolete. A teletype report took one minute to send, versus five minutes on the telephone. In 1965, the first computerized bureau went online, starting

3852-478: The 1960s, Retail Credit Company was one of the nation's largest credit bureaus, holding files on millions of American and Canadian citizens. Even though the company continued to do credit reporting, the majority of its business was making reports to insurance companies when people applied for new insurance policies, such as life, auto, fire and medical insurance. RCC also investigated insurance claims and made employment reports when people were seeking new jobs. Most of

3959-539: The 1970s. There was a consent decree. In 1975 the company changed its name to "Equifax"—reportedly to counteract its tarnished reputation. The company has been fined by the Federal Trade Commission on two occasions for violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA"). In 2000, Equifax, along with Experian and TransUnion, was fined $ 2.5 million for blocking and delaying phone calls from consumers trying to get information about their credit. In 2003,

4066-551: The Americas, Europe , and Asia Pacific . With over 14,000 employees worldwide, Equifax has nearly US$ 5 billion in annual revenue and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange ( NYSE ) under the symbol EFX. Equifax was founded as the Retail Credit Company by Cator and Guy Woolford in Atlanta, Georgia , as Retail Credit Company in 1899. By 1920, the company had offices throughout the United States and Canada. By

4173-540: The Apple App Store and from Google Play . While these apps themselves were not reportedly connected to that breach, they had security flaws of their own, being vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks owing to some parts using HTTP instead of HTTPS . On October 8, 2017, Krebs reported that The Work Number , a website operated by Equifax's TALX division, exposed the salary histories for employees of tens of thousands of US companies to anyone in possession of

4280-577: The Australian market research and opinion polling company ReachTEL in September 2015, which continues to produce opinion polls in Australia. Equifax was the subject of more than 57,000 consumer complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from October 2012 to September 17, 2017, with most complaints relating to incomplete, inaccurate, outdated, or misattributed information held by

4387-670: The Banking Companies Ordinance (BCO), 1962, the SBP mandates that all financial institutions in Pakistan including banks, developmental financial institutions (DFIs) and micro finance banks (MFBs) are required to use the eCIB software for monitoring credit reports. SBP controls updates to the database, updates the reports and monitors the software. All member financial institutions are required to submit entire borrowers' records online to eCIB every month within two weeks after

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4494-763: The Consumer Data Industry Association (CDIA) to establish reporting standards and lobby on behalf of their industry issues in Washington. Current reporting standards accepted by the four U.S. CRAs are Metro and Metro2. The Metro2 standard is defined in the annual CDIA publication, the Credit Reporting Resource Guide . Consumers are entitled to a free annual credit report from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting agencies, Equifax , Experian and TransUnion . Consumers can go to annualcreditreport.com ,

4601-550: The FCRA have been successful in small claims court. Equifax software engineer Sudhakar Reddy was charged with insider trading for purchasing options prior to the disclosure of the 2017 data breach. In January 2020, Equifax agreed to a global settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and 50 U.S. states and territories. For those that were affected by

4708-542: The FTC took Equifax to court for the same reason and settled its lawsuit with the company for a fine of $ 250,000. In July 2013, a federal jury in Oregon awarded $ 18.6 million to Julie Miller of Marion County against Equifax for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. In her lawsuit, Miller alleged Equifax had merged her credit reports with another person with a different Social Security number, date of birth, and address. Miller contacted Equifax repeatedly in writing and over

4815-516: The Internet site maintained by the three companies, to get their free report. There are dozens of other similar information collection and reporting firms that analyze and sell information about consumers for other purposes, including those who aggregate multiple credit data sources and provide lenders with customized analytical tools. Furthermore, there are also non-traditional credit reporting agencies. PRBC (Payment Reporting Builds Credit, Inc.)

4922-540: The National Consumer Telecom and Utilities Exchange (NCTUE), an exchange of non-credit data including consumer payment history on telecommunications and utility accounts. In 1999, Equifax began offering services to the credit consumer sector in addition, such as credit fraud and identity theft prevention products. Equifax and other credit monitoring agencies are required by law to provide US residents with one free credit file disclosure every 12 months;

5029-472: The Philippine Islands (BPI), Banco de Oro Unibank (BDO), Metrobank Card Corporation, HSBC and Citibank Philippines to launch the country's first comprehensive, international private credit bureau. Contributing TransUnion members are given access to credit information in the form of a credit report, consumer bureau score and additional value-added services. TransUnion Philippines aims to strengthen

5136-588: The Philippine financial system through increased access to credit for borrowers and reduced risk to lenders. The Saudi Credit Bureau (SIMAH) is the first and sole licensed national credit bureau offering consumer and commercial credit information services to respective members in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It was established in 2002 and began operating on the ground in 2004 under the supervisory umbrella of Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), currently known as

5243-523: The Saudi national economy. SIMAH was then established to operate within the context of the current banking act and regulations issued by SAMA. In the United States, a percentage of credit reports provided by consumer reporting agencies contain inaccuracies. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), common causes of errors broadly fall into one of two categories: inclusion of incorrect information and exclusion of correct information. Reasons for

5350-432: The analytical process for their customers, the different consumer reporting agencies can apply a mathematical algorithm to provide a score the customer can use to more rapidly assess the likelihood that an individual will repay a particular debt given the frequency that other individuals in similar situations have defaulted. Most consumer welfare advocates advise individuals to review their credit reports at least once

5457-481: The attack. On March 1, 2018, Equifax announced that 2.4 million additional U.S. customers were affected by the breach, increasing the number of affected to 147.9 million Americans. The company claims to have discovered evidence of the cybercrime event on July 29, 2017. Residents in the United Kingdom (15.2 million) and Canada (about 19,000) were also impacted. The vulnerability which Chinese hackers leveraged

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5564-403: The automation and consolidation of consumer credit reporting. Credit reports contained probing details about personality, habits, and health. In the hearings on the 1970 Fair Credit Reporting Act lawmakers were troubled that individuals were helpless to clear up errors. In the 1960s, credit scoring was widely adopted. In the United States, there is no legal term for a credit bureau under

5671-500: The breach, which China has denied. In September 2017, Brian Krebs revealed that the Argentine arm of Equifax had left private data from approximately 14,000 consumers, and more than 100 staff members, available to anyone who entered "admin" as both the username and password for one of its online systems. On September 7, 2017, the same day as Equifax announced a large security breach , Equifax removed its official mobile apps from

5778-630: The breach, while Equifax later came to a $ 575 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission to offer either a cash payment or credit monitoring for those affected by the breach. The data from the breach has yet to be seen on black markets or the dark web by security experts, making it difficult to identify the origin of the breach. However, in February 2020, the United States Department of Justice indicted four members of China 's People's Liberation Army on nine charges related to

5885-655: The broadest level. In all cases, BI is believed to be most effective when it combines data derived from the market in which a company operates (external data) with data from company sources internal to the business such as financial and operations data (internal data). When combined, external and internal data can provide a complete picture which, in effect, creates an "intelligence" that cannot be derived from any singular set of data. Among their many uses, business intelligence tools empower organizations to gain insight into new markets, to assess demand and suitability of products and services for different market segments , and to gauge

5992-677: The bureau, which ensures the credit report of the consumer is accurate and not negatively handled. The database exists because individuals in the VIP database could cause significant problems for the bureaus, including negative publicity and legislative action which could adversely affect the industry. So far an economic model to describe this industry has not been attempted, while the fundamentals are counter intuitive to any market known, since other industries (finance, banking, insurance) sponsor consumer reporting agencies to process information while consumers pay CRAs to receive that information. The utility of

6099-442: The bureaus is then aggregated into the consumer reporting agency's data repository or files. The resulting information is made available on request to customers of the consumer reporting agencies' for the purposes of credit risk assessment, credit scoring or for other purposes such as employment consideration or leasing an apartment. Given the large number of consumer borrowers, these credit scores tend to be mechanistic. To simplify

6206-670: The business-intelligence architectural stack. Some elements of business intelligence are: Forrester distinguishes this from the business-intelligence market , which is "just the top layers of the BI architectural stack, such as reporting , analytics , and dashboards ." Though the term business intelligence is sometimes a synonym for competitive intelligence (because they both support decision making ), BI uses technologies, processes, and applications to analyze mostly internal, structured data and business processes while competitive intelligence gathers, analyzes, and disseminates information with

6313-639: The common data pool. Credit reference agencies are bound by the Data Protection Act 2018 , which requires that data relating to identifiable individuals must be accurate, relevant, held for a proper purpose and not out-of-date, and gives individuals the legal right to access data held on them. Credit agencies are therefore required under law to provide an individual with a copy of their consumer credit report upon request. Most agencies also provide online services for ongoing access to reports. The activities of Credit Reference Agencies are governed by

6420-439: The company. In September 2017, Equifax announced a cyber-security breach , which it claims to have occurred between mid-May and July 2017, where cybercriminals accessed approximately 145.5 million U.S. Equifax consumers' personal data, including their full names, Social Security numbers , birth dates, addresses, and driver license numbers . Equifax also confirmed at least 209,000 consumers' credit card credentials were taken in

6527-581: The consumer and a customary FICO-like score to the lender or business. Liz Weston writes that some consumer advocates refer to these other [educational] credit scores as "FAKO scores" (a play on acronym of FICO). In consideration of the fact that algorithms which rate people are used in a discriminatory fashion to deny people legal rights (employment, insurance, credit, etc.), those very algorithms act as law. The law says that if one does "this" or if one "does" that, then they will be afforded different treatment and opportunities. What needs to be done though remains

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6634-414: The consumer is hard to calculate since the consumer is given no recourse to correct mistakes processed about them, hence the dynamics of this triangle involving consumers, credit reporters, and sponsoring industries remain undefined. Commercial credit reporting and scoring bureaus also exist and can be used to evaluate the likelihood of a business paying creditors. Examples of commercial credit reports are

6741-520: The consumer, such as whether to approve for a loan or credit card. Following the Panic of 1837 , the first commercial credit reporting organizations formed. By the 1850s, coded reference books were available to wholesalers, merchants, banks, and insurance companies that subscribed. In 1875, typed reports replaced handwritten ledgers for storage and retrieval. By the end of the 1880s, surveillance of retail customers existed in major urban centers. By

6848-442: The content. This can be done by adding context through the use of metadata . Many systems already capture some metadata (e.g. filename, author, size, etc.), but more useful would be metadata about the actual content – e.g. summaries, topics, people, or companies mentioned. Two technologies designed for generating metadata about content are automatic categorization and information extraction . Generative business intelligence

6955-462: The continuing exchange of credit data within its members and subscribers and to provide an impartial source of credit information for debtors, creditors and the public. This will also cooperate and guide government agencies in their credit information requirements. On April 14, 1982, Credit Information Bureau, Inc. was incorporated as a non-stock, non-profit corporation. (See: Presidential Decree No. 1941 [7]) In 1982, Credit Information Bureau, Inc.

7062-468: The costs of correcting errors or providing more timely and complete information [data furnishers and consumer reporting agencies] may not receive much benefit from the improvement in accuracy." The formula to calculate consumer credit scores by a consumer reporting agency is proprietary and considered a trade secret of the agency in the United States. Some consumer reporting agencies in the United States provide two credit scores - an 'educational' score to

7169-479: The credit bureaus, some may only report information to one, while others may report to none. Other sources like collection agencies and public records information are also reported to the credit bureaus. These credit reporting agencies are regulated by the governments on a provincial and territorial level. Most provinces in Canada have their own credit reporting legislation in place that dictates how credit reporting agencies may share consumer information. There's also

7276-735: The credit reporting agencies after Haman reported" she was still alive. An Equifax "spokesperson told the Post-Dispatch that Equifax blocked the Heartland account information from appearing on Haman's credit report after a reporter's inquiry." In April 2014, Equifax was sued in New York federal court by God Gazarov, who claimed the company erroneously reports him as having no credit history because of his unusual first name. Gazarov settled his lawsuit in May 2015, with Equifax agreeing to enter his name into their database. On November 4, 2017, it

7383-458: The credit work was then being done by a subsidiary , Retailers Commercial Agency. Retail Credit Company's information holdings and willingness to sell its information attracted criticism in the 1960s and 1970s. These included that it collected "...   facts, statistics, inaccuracies and rumors ... about virtually every phase of a person's life; his marital troubles, jobs, school history, childhood, sex life, and political activities." The company

7490-594: The credit worthiness of their existing and prospective customers, which enhances the credit providers risk assessment capabilities to determine whether or not the customer is likely to repay. In 1981, Ferdinand Marcos , then President of the Republic of the Philippines, issued a Letter of Instructions No. 1107 mandating the Central Bank of the Philippines to analyze the probability of establishing and funding

7597-455: The data breach, there were open suggestions to file claims against it. The settlement includes up to $ 425 million to help people affected by the data breach. Equifax ultimately reached a settlement with regulators for up to $ 700 million. In October 2023, the UK's Financial Conduct Authority fined Equifax more than £11 million for failing to secure UK customer data. In May 2024, mortgage lenders First Financial Lending and Greystone Mortgage filed

7704-537: The data is not allowed by SBFE. In the case of Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc. , 472 U.S. 749 (1985) the U.S. Supreme Court held that a consumer reporting agency may be liable if it was careless in reporting an impending or past bankruptcy filing of a business that is not a public figure . Iran Credit Scoring (ICS) Company is the sole licensed national consumer reporting agency offering credit information services to respective members in Iran. ICS

7811-457: The data of hundreds of thousands of Americans in order to show Equifax the vulnerabilities within its systems. They said they could have downloaded the data of all of Equifax's customers in 10 minutes: "I've seen a lot of bad things, but not this bad." The same types of sensitive private information of American consumers (names, birth dates, social security numbers, etc.) were exposed as in the May–July breach, according to Motherboard. Additionally,

7918-667: The deal were not disclosed. Equifax purchased eThority, a business intelligence (BI) company headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina , in October 2011. eThority is partnering with TALX , a St. Louis -based business unit of Equifax, and remained in Charleston. In February 2016, Equifax acquired the Australasian company Veda , the largest credit reference agency in Australia at the time. Veda had previously acquired

8025-566: The easy interpretation of these big data . Identifying new opportunities and implementing an effective strategy based on insights is assumed to potentially provide businesses with a competitive market advantage and long-term stability, and help them take strategic decisions. Business intelligence can be used by enterprises to support a wide range of business decisions ranging from operational to strategic. Basic operating decisions include product positioning or pricing . Strategic business decisions involve priorities, goals , and directions at

8132-433: The effect of asymmetric information between borrowers and lenders, and alleviate problems of adverse selection and moral hazard. For example, adequate credit information could facilitate lenders in screening and monitoring borrowers as well as avoiding giving loans to high risk individuals. Lenders use this to evaluate credit worthiness, the ability to pay back a loan , and can affect the interest rate and other terms of

8239-495: The employee's Social Security Number and date of birth. For roughly half the US population, both of the latter pieces of data are known to be in possession of criminals, following Equifax's May–July 2017 security breach . In July 2019, Equifax settled with the Federal Trade Commission for $ 700 million. This number contains a $ 380,500,000 consumer restitution fund, part of the class action lawsuit. On October 12, 2017, Equifax's website

8346-740: The end of the month. Aquitas Information Services (AISL) under the brand name TASDEEQ is the first licensed private Credit Bureau in Pakistan. In the United Kingdom, the Credit Reference Agencies are Experian , Equifax and TransUnion . Most banks and other credit-granting organisations subscribe to one or more of these organisations to ensure the quality of their lending. This includes companies who sell goods or services on credit such as credit card issuers, utility companies and store card issuers. Subscribing organisations are expected to provide relevant data to maintain

8453-432: The errors had affected only a few people. The following day, a class-action lawsuit was filed by Jacksonville, Florida resident Nydia Jenkins against Equifax alleging she had received a "substantially pricier car loan" (resulting in an additional loan payment of $ 2,352 more per year) due to Equifax reporting her credit score 130 points off from what it should have been. In February 2023, it was announced Equifax had acquired

8560-507: The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). A consumer reporting agency is often abbreviated in the industry as CRA. In the United States, key consumer reporting agency consumer protections and general rules or governing guidelines for both the consumer reporting agencies and data furnishers are the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA), and Regulation B. Two government bodies share responsibility for

8667-492: The following business purposes: Some common technical roles for business intelligence developers are: In a 2013 report, Gartner categorized business intelligence vendors as either an independent "pure-play" vendor or a consolidated "mega-vendor". In 2019, the BI market was shaken within Europe for the new legislation of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which puts the responsibility of data collection and storage onto

8774-479: The four national traditional consumer reporting agencies: Experian (formerly TRW Information Systems & Services and the CCN Group), Equifax , TransUnion , and Innovis (which was purchased from First Data Corporation in 1999 by CBC Companies ). These organizations are for-profit businesses and possess no government affiliation. Though they are competitors, they are members of a trade organization called

8881-794: The functionality and stability of the Indian financial system by containing non-performing assets (NPAs) while improving credit grantors' portfolio quality. CIBIL is now promoted by TransUnion International Inc. (TransUnion) to provide comprehensive credit information by collecting, collating and disseminating credit information, pertaining to both commercial and consumer borrowers, to a closed user group of members. RBI approved three other credit bureaus in 2010 – CRIF High Mark (earlier High Mark), Equifax and Experian . The consumer credit scores in India range from 300 to 900. High Mark launched India's first micro finance bureau in early 2011 and today operates

8988-507: The impact of marketing efforts. BI applications use data gathered from a data warehouse (DW) or from a data mart , and the concepts of BI and DW combine as "BI/DW" or as "BIDW". A data warehouse contains a copy of analytical data that facilitates decision support . The earliest known use of the term business intelligence is in Richard Millar Devens' Cyclopædia of Commercial and Business Anecdotes (1865). Devens used

9095-507: The inaccuracies include consumers providing inaccurate information to the consumer reporting agencies; incorrect or incomplete data input by furnishers, or failing to provide data to the consumer reporting agency; and incorrect or incomplete data (or data applied to the wrong consumer) by the consumer reporting agency. According to Avery, Calem, and Canner in Credit Report Accuracy and Access to Credit , "the parties that bear

9202-563: The insurance industry but spun off this service, including the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange (CLUE) database as ChoicePoint in 1997. Equifax formerly offered digital certification services, which it sold to GeoTrust in September 2001. Also in 2001, Equifax spun off its payment services division, forming the publicly listed company Certegy , which subsequently acquired Fidelity National Information Services in 2006. Certegy effectively became

9309-486: The intent of the model, which intent is also undisclosed. According to David Szwak, a partner in Bodenheimer, Jones & Szwak which specializes in insurance law and litigation against consumer reporting agencies, some consumer reporting agencies in the United States maintain a VIP database of special consumers such as members of Congress , judges, actors and celebrities. The VIP database is specially administered by

9416-409: The late 1890s, credit management was professionalizing, with retailers and bureau operators systematizing creditworthiness categories. During the early 20th century, stores interviewed, documented, and tracked customers in 35,000 credit departments. Credit spending exploded during the 1910s and 1920s. By the 1920s, credit managers mined customer information for targeted sales promotions. During

9523-460: The news. The ability to collect and react accordingly based on the information retrieved, Devens says, is central to business intelligence. When Hans Peter Luhn , a researcher at IBM , used the term business intelligence in an article published in 1958, he employed the Webster's Dictionary definition of intelligence: "the ability to apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such

9630-702: The objective of improving the timeliness and the quality of the input to the decision process." According to Forrester Research , business intelligence is "a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making." Under this definition, business intelligence encompasses information management ( data integration , data quality , data warehousing, master-data management, text- and content-analytics, et al.). Therefore, Forrester refers to data preparation and data usage as two separate but closely linked segments of

9737-400: The open Internet. "I didn't have to do anything fancy," the researcher told Motherboard, explaining that the site was vulnerable to a basic "forced browsing" bug. The researcher requested anonymity out of professional concerns. "All you had to do was put in a search term and get millions of results, just instantly—in cleartext, through a web app," they said. In total, the researcher downloaded

9844-556: The operation of a credit bureau in the Philippines due to the disturbing increase of failures on corporate borrowers. In adherence to the order, Central Bank of the Philippines organized the Credit Information Exchange System under the department of Loans and Credit. It was created to engage in collating, developing and analyzing credit information on individuals, institutions, business entities and other business concerns. It aims to develop and undertake

9951-442: The personal credit and payment history of individuals, indicating how they have honored financial obligations such as paying bills or repaying a loan . Credit grantors use this information to decide what sort of products or services to offer their customers, and on what terms. Equifax also provides commercial credit reports containing financial and non-financial data on businesses of all sizes. Equifax collects and provides data through

10058-404: The reporting agencies have a relationship. Data furnishers are typically creditors, lenders, utilities, debt collection agencies (credit bureaus) and the courts (i.e. public records ) that a consumer has had a relationship or experience with. Data furnishers report their payment experience with the consumer to the credit reporting agencies. The data provided by the furnishers as well as collected by

10165-437: The same server targeted in the later breaches, which Motherboard speculates may suggest multiple breaches by more than one party may have occurred. On September 18, 2017, Bloomberg News reported that Equifax had been the victim of a "major breach of its computer systems" in March 2017, and that in early March it had begun "notifying a small number of outsiders and banking customers" about this attack. According to Bloomberg,

10272-407: The same time, consumers also benefit from a good credit information system because it reduces the effect of credit monopoly from banks and provides incentives for borrowers to repay their loans on time. In the U.S., consumer reporting agencies collect and aggregate personal information , financial data, and alternative data on individuals from a variety of sources called data furnishers with which

10379-415: The security researchers said they were able to gain shell access on Equifax's servers and discovered and reported to Equifax additional vulnerabilities. According to the reporting, despite receiving this warning from the security researcher, the affected portal was not closed until six months later in June, well after the March and May–July breaches had begun. Moreover, the employee portal was reportedly not

10486-597: The shipping and logistics sectors, the firm has expanded its position in commercial payment technology solutions. On 2 August 2022, a week after its CEO Mark Begor was deemed "uniquely qualified to lead the Company" and was granted a $ 25 million bonus package by Equifax's board, the Wall Street Journal reported that Equifax had sent millions of incorrectly calculated credit scores to lenders. Equifax acknowledged reporting inaccurate credit scores, but insisted

10593-477: The telephone, but Equifax refused to delete dozens of false collection accounts from Miller's credit report. The award included $ 18.4 million in punitive damages, and $ 180,000 in compensatory damages. Miller's lawyer, Justin Baxter, explained that the false reporting damaged Miller's reputation, she was denied credit, and her private information was given to businesses Miller had no relationship with. The jury's verdict

10700-425: The term to describe how the banker Sir Henry Furnese gained profit by receiving and acting upon information about his environment, prior to his competitors: Throughout Holland, Flanders, France, and Germany, he maintained a complete and perfect train of business intelligence. The news of the many battles fought was thus received first by him, and the fall of Namur added to his profits, owing to his early receipt of

10807-586: The world's largest micro finance bureau besides offering traditional bureau services for the Retail lending industry. CRIF High Mark is India’s first full-service credit bureau serving all borrower segments – Retail, Agri & Rural, MSME, commercial and Microfinance. The Electronic Credit Information Bureau (CIB) was established by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in December, 1992. Under section 25(A) of

10914-571: Was CVE - 2017-5638 ; the hackers managed to stay in Equifax's systems undetected for approximately 134   days. In March 2018, the Security and Exchange Commission accused Jun Ying, Equifax's former CIO , of illicit insider trading, by selling company stock before the breach was publicly disclosed. After an investigation by the FBI , Ying pleaded guilty, was sentenced to four months of prison plus

11021-572: Was also alleged to reward its employees for collecting derogatory information on consumers. This led to discrimination against queer people and people of color . In 1970, after the company had computerized its records, which led to wider availability of the personal information it held, the U.S. Congress held hearings that led to the enactment of the Fair Credit Reporting Act . This legislation gave consumers rights regarding information stored about them in corporate databanks. It

11128-549: Was established through the power of Presidential decree 1941 and created under Central Bank of the Philippines, now Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) department of Loans and Credit, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX); to initiate a credit information exchange system in the country. In 1997, Credit Information Bureau, Inc.

11235-429: Was incorporated and transformed into a private entity and became CIBI Information, Inc. In 2008, Republic Act No. 9510 also known as Credit Information System Act of 2008 gave way to the creation of Credit Information Corporation as the new government-owned and controlled credit registry in the country. In 2011, TransUnion Information Solutions, Inc. begins operations in the Philippines, partnering with Bank of

11342-413: Was reported that a group of five Oklahomans had sued the company, claiming that Equifax "violated laws which require financial institutions to protect the security of their customers' personal information." Equifax selected the law firm DLA Piper to work on the case in D.C. It had turned to Edelman for earlier crisis control after the October 2017 privacy breach. Consumer lawsuits claiming damages under

11449-542: Was reported to have been offering visitors malware via drive-by download . The malware was disguised as an update for Adobe Flash . At that time, only 3 out of 65 top anti-malware products provided protection against the particular malware, meaning that many visitors were at risk of having their computers infected when visiting the Equifax website. On October 13, 2017, the attack was revealed to have been performed by hijacking third-party analytics JavaScript from Digital River brand FireClick. Also on October 13, 2017,

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