Equifax 2012 Annual Report Download - page 4

A Few Highlights from 2012
The U.S. Consumer Information Solutions (USCIS) business
unit became a stronger enterprise-wide distribution channel by
cross-selling products enriched with income, employment and
wealth data, as well as small business commercial credit in-
formation, providing our customers with premier, differentiated
decision-making insights.
Workforce Solutions expanded its employment and income
verification products into the credit card, auto, and student
lending markets, and introduced unique products for govern-
ment agencies to establish entitlement program eligibility.
The business unit grew The Work Number® database to
222 million total files and 55 million active files at year-end
and is on a path to reach 250 million total files over the
course of the next few years.
Through outstanding execution and continuous customer feed-
back, the North America Personal Solutions (PSOL) business
unit increased average revenue per customer, drove improved
traffic and conversion rates, and accelerated the testing and
successful deployment of new product offerings.
Our North America Commercial Solutions (NACS) business unit,
which provides solutions for lenders and companies serving
small and medium businesses, grew its market share in core
financial and telecommunications markets while innovating to
expand into new vertical markets.
Our International business, with operations and investments
in 17 countries outside the U.S., continued as a strong growth
engine for the Company, delivering new products, strengthen-
ing existing market positions through acquisition and operational
execution, and acquiring new customers. These efforts enabled
International to drive growth even in geographies where there
was flat to negative GDP.
Only from Equifax
Customers see Equifax as a unique problem-solver, not only
because of our unmatched data assets but also for the industry
expertise and analytical insights we provide to improve their
decisioning activities and business processes.
Our Suspicious ID™ fraud mitigation solution is a prime
example. Unlike other fraud prevention solutions that report
data periodically, Suspicious ID interprets fraudulent activity
patterns in real time by monitoring unusual credit activities
across our entire network of financial services organizations
as well as other related industries — delivering a new level
of service and protection for our customers. Suspicious ID
effectively takes Equifax data assets and extends fraud
prevention beyond traditional methods.
Building our inventory of differentiated data assets and applying
them to achieve a 360-degree view of the consumer fuels our
New Product Innovation (NPI) process. Through NPI we bring 60-
75 new products to market each year, broadly dispersed across
both business units and geographies. NPI contributes approxi-
mately three points to our revenue growth each year.
Each business unit made important gains in broadening and
deepening its relationships in key vertical markets, leverag-
ing investments Equifax has made in assembling and develop-
ing sector-specific talent, insights and resources. The ability to
combine unique data with formidable analytics is as valuable in
decision-intensive fields such as insurance, telco and marketing
as it is in financial services, offering paths to growth across a
widening range of customers.
Our merger and acquisition activity continues to focus on
acquiring new data and analytics capabilities as well as comple-
mentary business assets and technology; strengthening our
position in desirable geographic markets; and scaling existing
operations. Late in 2012, we purchased CSC Credit Services,
our last and largest affiliate with consumer credit files in 15
states that cover approximately 20% of the U.S. population. We
expect the value of these assets to be a catalyst for improved
operating margins and long-term growth in our USCIS business
unit.
Complementing our focus on growth initiatives is an ongoing
emphasis on LEAN process improvement to achieve operational
excellence. These programs had a positive impact on our
expense base of more than $20 million in 2012.
Insights: The Future
In the next few years, our analytics capabilities will be an
increasingly significant force in expanding the solutions Equifax
can create for customers as we place higher emphasis on
driving insights that address their challenges and opportunities.
Strategic investments in talent and technology, which together
leverage a broader and more diverse set of data, will lead to the
creation of new decision-making solutions for customers across
all of our markets.
“Big Data” is very much a part of this analytics-rich future.
We have a long heritage in handling vast amounts of data
with extensive and robust capabilities in structured data. More
recently, Big Data has come to include enormous amounts of
digitally-generated unstructured information. So we are partner-
ing with key players that manage and analyze unstructured data
2 Equifax 2012 Annual Report