Press Release

FINDING OUT IF YOUR CUSTOMER CAN'T PAY OR WON'T PAY

Equifax warns consumers not to put personal data on phones and laptops as report reveals that 60,000 hand held devices left in the back of black cabs in the last 6 months

London, 29th September 2008 -The economic climate is currently looking very unstable, especially for those who are already struggling under unsustainable debt. What this means for the credit industry is the likelihood of more people defaulting on their credit agreements in the coming months, presenting probably the biggest challenge for tracing and recovery for a number of years. Recognising that this challenge is faced by all sectors of the consumer credit marketplace, leading credit information provider, Equifax, has enhanced its portfolio of Debtor Management Solutions, including its online consumer tracing product, Locate.

"In such difficult times, it is crucial for Collections teams and Debt Recovery Companies to use the most accurate and effective solutions to identify the correct person for the recovery of outstanding debts" confirmed Neil Munroe, External Affairs Director, Equifax.

"But finding debtors is not always enough - it is knowing they have the money to pay. And, of course, the biggest problem facing the credit and collections industry is every debtor behaves differently. There are 'can't pays' and 'won't pays' and clearly it is vital to be able to differentiate between these so that resources can be effectively applied to maximise collection of outstanding debts."

The new Equifax Debtor Management Solutions provide a range of easy to use tools that not only improve the chances of recovery, but also at the same time improve the efficiency of recovery teams. At the heart of these solutions is Equifax Locate.

Equifax Locate utilises a database of over 500 million up-to-date and live records derived from an extensive range of data sources, in order to reveal addresses linked to an individual through a single search. The latest version features a unique ranking system that gives users a clear indication of why a traced address has been supplied, giving them the confidence that only addresses that fit their trace policy are returned.

Gold rankings are given where there is strong evidence that the subject being traced has moved from the supplied address to the traced address. Silver rankings are for addresses where there is no evidence that the subject being traced has moved from the supplied address to the traced address - but there is strong evidence that they have been active at the traced address. The Bronze ranking is for addresses where there is no evidence that the subject has moved to the traced address, but there is evidence that someone with the subject's name and date of birth combination have been active there or someone the subject has previously lived with has moved to the trace address.

Further enhancements to Equifax Locate also enable improved processing of data and more accurate decisioning where conflicting information is available. These include activity back up of the debtor name, deceased screening and Electoral Roll overlap, all helping to exclude innocent people who are not the debtor.

Equifax has also enhanced its Residency Reports in the new version of Locate. These enable users to determine if the individual remains active at their last known address and include a unique Past Residency service, which searches the history of information at the property to see if the applicant has ever lived at the address.

Another key part of the Debtor Management Solutions portfolio which compliments Equifax Locate is the Equifax Collection Strategy Index (CSI). This helps predict the likely repayment behaviour of debtors by putting them into categories according to the likelihood of recovery. Data on credit accounts and repayment performance, any court actions and residential information, can be overlaid with an organisation's own data, such as recency of last payment, value of debt, etc, to create a collectability score for each debtor, thereby helping a Collections team to focus on those debts most likely to be recovered.

In addition to the Collections Strategy Index, Equifax is also able to offer Insolvency Navigator* With the increase in IVAs and Bankruptcies, Insolvency Navigator has been designed to help identify the specific and growing risk of an individual becoming insolvent allowing the tailoring of early collection strategies to ensure recovery of the debt is maximised.

"Regardless of whether individuals have genuinely moved and simply failed to inform an organisation of their change of address, have moved to avoid their debts or are pretending to move but remain active at their current residence, not knowing their whereabouts directly affects an organisation's bottom line", concluded Neil Munroe.

"The latest enhancements to The Equifax Debtor Management Solutions, including the new version of Equifax Locate, aim to increase the chances of finding missing debtors, and help collectors to identify those debtors on which it is worth applying resources for recovery, all of which is going to be vital as we face some challenging economic conditions over the next year or so."

*The Equifax Insolvency Navigator is only accessible to organisations that are full members of the Equifax Insight Closed User Group, in accordance with SCOR rules.

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For further press information please contact: Wendy Harrison, Cecile Stearn, Margot Tomkinson or Jenny Staniforth at HSL on 020 8977 9132 / Fax: 020 8977 5200 or Email: wendy@harrisonsadler.com