Over 200 delegates, representing credit bureaus in 46 countries worldwide, gathered together in Toronto on September 25-27 to find out more about how credit bureaus can effectively deal with new challenges, what they are, and how to react.
Keynote speeches featured Douglas Porter, Chief Economist and Managing Director of the Bank of Montreal, who covered the financial outlook of North America, predicting stable inflation and increased GDP in 2017 with possible impacts from energy prices. Raj Date, Managing Partner of Fenway Summer LLC., addressed the increasing importance of FinTech in the credit reporting field, how new and innovative delivery channels will open up, and how fast the industry will adapt to these changes and incorporate them into their business models.
With this as a starting point, other sessions continued on the theme of potential market disruption in credit reporting. Sally Taylor-Schoff, Vice President of FICO Scores, talked about traditional scoring products and scores that focus on the underserved population. On the same panel, Paul Randall of CreditInfo discussed newly developed alternative scoring models based on non-traditional data in order to reach consumers who are currently unscorable.
Keynote speeches featured Douglas Porter, Chief Economist and Managing Director of the Bank of Montreal, who covered the financial outlook of North America, predicting stable inflation and increased GDP in 2017 with possible impacts from energy prices. Raj Date, Managing Partner of Fenway Summer LLC., addressed the increasing importance of FinTech in the credit reporting field, how new and innovative delivery channels will open up, and how fast the industry will adapt to these changes and incorporate them into their business models.
With this as a starting point, other sessions continued on the theme of potential market disruption in credit reporting. Sally Taylor-Schoff, Vice President of FICO Scores, talked about traditional scoring products and scores that focus on the underserved population. On the same panel, Paul Randall of CreditInfo discussed newly developed alternative scoring models based on non-traditional data in order to reach consumers who are currently unscorable.
In the same vein, Enrico Lodi, General Manager of CRIF Credit Bureau Services, and Tony Hadley, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy of Experian, discussed credit reporting and data transfers from a cross-border viewpoint. Lodi explored the EU General Data Protection Regulation, its potential effect on credit bureaus and, most importantly, how ACCIS (Association of Consumer Credit Information Suppliers) is working to deal with it. On the other hand, Hadley focused on the US-EU Privacy Shield initiative that was adopted earlier this year, including compliance requirements and regulatory oversight regarding privacy provisions.
A panel on cybercrime, with Bob Belair, Partner at Arnall, Golden Gregory LLP, and Joe Nocera, Principal at PwC, centered around the cybersecurity landscape. The continued increase in data breaches targeting financial services companies and credit bureaus, initiatives being implemented to counteract them and best practices were the main points of discussion.
Patrick Walker, Research Director of PERC, and Chris Jones, President of Equifax Latin America, discussed the importance and value of reaching out to those consumers currently not part of the credit reporting market. They emphasized the positive results achieved when Australia moved to full file reporting as well as the value of alternative data inclusion in traditional credit decision processes, pointing out that today 61% Latin American consumers have no banking relationship and discussing how it is possible to reach them.
John Danaher, President of TransUnion Interactive, and Mike Gordon, CEO of Call Credit Information Group looked in detail at consumer products and services, respectively, presenting TransUnion’s partnership with Credit Karma to provide free credit reports to US consumers and the success of Noddle, Callcredit’s free credit report and credit score service for UK consumers.
The conference ended with 3 panel sessions devoted to regional and global credit bureau issues. The World Bank reviewed the General Principles developed by the International Committee on Credit Reporting as well as the Bank’s work on G20 and APEC credit reporting issues. Madam Xiaolei Wang, Deputy Director General of the Credit Reference Center of the Peoples Bank of China covered the increased growth of the consumer credit market in China and the latest developments in credit reporting. Fabrizio Fraboni, Lead Financial Sector Specialist of the World Bank, covered the same issues from a more global perspective in emerging market countries.
Five experts representing the major regional areas of the world brought their insight into the latest developments in the EU, North America, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. While differences do exist depending on the local regulatory and cultural environment, all were in agreement that credit reporting is the key to providing consumers with a better financial future.
