News release

Avoid credit heartburn…check your credit status

Johannesburg, 22 November 2012 – Analysts are predicting festive season sales to be brisk this December, but consumers should double check their credit rating before spending big this festive season a leading information services company has warned.

Experian South Africa says consumers should be armed with all the necessary information to ensure they have access to the funds they need, but to also prevent them from overspending.

Professional services group Adcorp is expecting “a strong seasonal peak” in employment between November 2012 and February next year mainly as a result of a “resilient” retail sector.

Loane Sharp, Adcorp’s labour economist, this week observed: “The retail sector is doing strikingly well and all of the sectors that are connected to consumer spending, like transport and logistics, and food and clothing manufacturing, should do very well this festive season.”

It is against this background that Michelle Beetar, Managing Director at Experian South Africa, urges consumers to check out their current credit report before they start thinking about spending. “Your credit history needs to be in good shape to allow you to secure credit and you need to be fully aware of your status and your limits,” she cautions.

Beetar encourages consumers to take advantage of the free annual service provided by the credit bureaus as prescribed by the National Credit Act, giving consumers the right to access their credit reports once a year at no cost.

The service is available online and call centre agents are invariably on hand at the bureaus; agents who are trained to assist consumers to better understand their reports and advise them on possible courses of action for remedying any uncertain or negative information.

Beetar also debunks the myth that South African credit bureaus maintain blacklists.

“Because bureaus record both positive as well as negative credit information submitted by credit providers, it is impossible to maintain a one-sided negative report.”

She advises that consumers have the right to dispute the data contained in their reports should they feel the information is incorrect.

“The onus is then on the bureau to investigate that data and to remove it from the consumer’s record should credible evidence exist in support of that information not being accurate.”

Beetar earnestly encourages consumers to take advantage of their right to access their personal credit reports, partly with a view to ensuring they can access the credit they need  and partly as a reminder that untoward spending could well result in credit heartburn further down the line.

ENDS

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Footnote

To access your Experian credit report online and sign-up to receive credit report updates by sms and email, please visit www.creditexpert.co.za . For queries on your Experian credit report please contact Experian Consumer Relations on 0861 10 56 65.

About Experian

Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients around the world. The Group helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score, and protect against identity theft.

Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended 31 March 2012 was US$4.5 billion. Experian employs approximately 17,000 people in 44 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; California, US; and São Paulo, Brazil.

For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com .

News release

Revolutionary new approach sweeps away business credit granting mystique

The mystique long clouding criteria for business credit lending - a major challenge for any business - is being swept away by a revolutionary new approach.

Experian SA, one of the country’s foremost information services companies, is pioneering an innovative solution that automates credit decisions by combining the group’s comprehensive data assets, predictive analytical models and best-of-breed application processing systems into a single model, KreditAutomate.

“Because accurate and consistent assessment of business credit applications is critical to the sustainable success of any company, Experian has, over the years, devoted much attention to finding an answer to the challenge,” says Michelle Beetar, Experian SA’s managing director.

She points out that the ability to make application decisions quickly, consistently and cost efficiently supports improved revenue recognition; appropriate allocation of resources and long-term customer relationships.

“Further, the KreditAutomate solution’s intrinsic workflow capabilities ensure that customer service standards are maintained and administrative backlogs reduced. The system facilitates the processing of routine applications, thereby enabling the more effective re-allocation of resources.”

KreditAutomate, she explains, is a hosted solution with a complete set of business rules that drive every credit application decision – rules that may be customised to change the parameters such that they comply with every business’s unique risk appetite.

 Beetar spells out additional specific benefits:

• an automated assessment, within minutes, of each new business application;

• appropriate treatment of SMEs and non-SMEs;

• ability to determine the range of cut-off scores;

• response time is “significantly” shortened;

• highlights areas in which policy rules are either working or not working, thereby prompting remedial action;

• allows the appropriate level of management to sign off on the relevant levels of exposure, in the process achieving effective re-allocation of resource;

• provides consistent decision making; and

• decision consistency is maintained in a decentralised credit infrastructure.

ENDS

Contact:

About Experian

Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients in more than 80 countries. The company helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score, and protect against identity theft.

Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended 31 March 2011 was US$4.2 billion. Experian employs approximately 15,000 people in 41 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; California, US; and São Paulo, Brazil. 

For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com.