Experian 2015 Annual Report Download - page 56

Corporate responsibility continued
Key corporate responsibility facts
Providing financial education
14 schools
In the UK, we have helped 14 schools
become recognised as Centres of
Excellence in financial education
Giving our time to help
39,139 hours
Our people volunteered 39,139 hours during
and outside of work to help support financial
education and local communities
Helping people understand
and manage their finances
People with a poor credit profile are
often seen as high risk by lenders, which
invariably means they are turned down for
credit or only offered it at a higher interest
rate. The sad consequence is that the very
people who are the least able to afford
services have to wait longer or pay more.
Through our consumer services like Credit
Tracker in the USA or CreditExpert in the
UK, we help people to understand their
credit profile, what affects it and how
to use it to get what they need. In North
America, our teams of Credit Educators
are available to provide support. In Brazil,
we piloted an expansion of our successful
Real Dreams financial education
programme, turning its attention to helping
small business entrepreneurs in São Paulo
learn how they can grow their business.
Following this success, we are looking to
expand this to other parts of the country.
Unpaid or excessive debt can affect
people’s lives, not just their credit scores.
So we invest in helping individuals and
businesses to understand how to manage
their finances. For example, more than
four million people in Brazil are registered
on our free online Recovery Portal, which
helps borrowers and lenders reach a
compromise to stop unmanageable debts
spiralling out of control. As a direct result
of the use of this service, over 1.1 million
debts, worth more than US$1.6bn, have
been repaid since its launch in July 2013.
Community investment*
2015
US$’000s
2014
US$’000s
Funds from Experian plc 3,310 2,299
Financial donations and investments
from Experian subsidiaries 1,565 2,347
Employee time volunteered 1,173 1,056
Gifts in kind 503 604
Management costs 937 605
Total from Experian 7,488 6,911
As % of Benchmark PBT 0.61% 0.56%
Employee fundraising 1,109 1,270
Out of work volunteering enabled by Experian 643 873
Total value of all giving 9,240 9,054
As % of Benchmark PBT 0.75% 0.73%
* For more information on how these figures are calculated, see the Reporting Principles and
Methodology at www.experianplc.com/responsibility
We tailor our long-standing financial
education programmes to local needs.
In the UK, 14 schools in some of the
country’s most disadvantaged areas have
become recognised Centres of Excellence
in financial education, through our
partnership with pfeg, a leading money
education charity. In North America, we
work with the Credit Builders Alliance to
train service providers to educate their
customers about managing finances. We
also launched a new financial education
product at the end of 2015, created through
the contributions of our employees in
our Social Innovation programme, which
enables small business owners to learn
what affects their commercial credit scores.
Our employees around the world
contribute their time, expertise and
enthusiasm to support these financial
education activities.
Safeguarding data and privacy
We manage vast amounts of data about
people and businesses. The continued
success of our business depends on our
ability to protect that data.
We have extensive and robust security
systems, with built-in safeguards against
physical threats and continually evolving
cyber attacks. Everyone at Experian is
personally responsible for data protection,
with support from dedicated security
teams. We also extend data protection
requirements to third-party suppliers and
partners, through our contracts.
Our Global Information Values set clear
expectations about how we use data across
the business, and our compliance principles
ensure effective governance, training and
risk management. Global Internal Audit
monitors our data protection activities.
54 Strategic report •Corporate responsibility