Equifax

Equifax collects, organizes, and manages various financial, demographic, employment, and marketing information primarily in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. Segments The company operates through five segments, including U.S. Consumer Information Solutions (USCIS), International, TALX, North America Personal Solutions, and North America Commercial Solutions. USCIS provides consumer information solutions to businesses in the U.S., including online credit data and credit decision technology solutions (OCIS), mortgage reporting and settlement solutions, consumer credit-based marketing services (CMS) and direct marketing services (DMS) based on demographic and other consumer information. International includes the company's Canada Consumer, Europe and Latin American business units. 

Products and services offered are similar to those available in the USCIS, North America Commercial Solutions and North America Personal Solutions operating segments but vary by geographic region. TALX provides services enabling clients to outsource and automate the performance of certain payroll and human resources business processes, including employment and income verification, tax management and talent management services. North America Personal Solutions provides products to consumers enabling them to monitor and protect their credit, credit score and identity information and make more informed financial decisions. North America Commercial Solutions provides credit, financial, marketing and other information regarding businesses in the U.S. and Canada. 

The company's product and service offerings are diversified and include consumer and business credit information, information database management, marketing information, decisions and analytical tools, and identity verification services that enable businesses to increase the speed of their decision-making regarding credit offers and other services, mitigate fraud, manage portfolio risk and customer relationships, and develop marketing strategies. It offers a portfolio of products marketed to individual consumers that enable them to understand, manage and protect their financial affairs. The company provides employment and income verification and human resources business process outsourcing services. USCIS Online Consumer Information Solutions (OCIS): OCIS products are derived from large databases of credit information that the company maintains about individual consumers, including credit history, current credit status and consumer address information. Customers utilize the credit report information that the company provides to make decisions for a range of credit and business purposes, such as whether, and on what terms, to approve auto loans or credit card applications, whether to allow a consumer to open a new utility or telephone account and similar business uses. The company offers other analytical and predictive services based on the information in the consumer credit information databases to help further mitigate the risk of granting credit by verifying the identity of a consumer seeking credit, predicting the risk of consumer bankruptcy, or indicating the credit applicant's risk potential for account delinquency. These risk management services, as well as fraud detection and prevention services, enable customers to monitor default rates and manage their existing credit card or other consumer loan accounts.

1899: On March 22, the company opened for business. The Woolfords moved to Atlanta with the goal of making credit reporting their new career. The company was founded under the name Retail Credit Company.

1901: In the fall, the company dispatched a salesman to the Northeast to drum up business in the home offices of the nation's largest insurance companies. Retail Credit Company expands into the moral hazard market, selling credit information to life insurance companies.

1902: As a result of its growing insurance business, Guy Woolford opened a second company office in Dallas, Texas, in March.

1903: In April Retail Credit closed its Augusta office, after clearly noting signs that the branch would not become profitable.

1904: A fourth office was opened in Kansas City, Missouri.

1908: The company began issuing reports for automobile liability insurers.

1913: Retail Credit Company was incorporated and continued to grow its insurance-related business.

1915: Retail Credit's earliest work compiling lists of good and bad credit risks in the Atlanta area had dwindled to almost nothing.

1920: Retail Credit Company continues to grow. The company had offices throughout the United States and Canada.

1921: The increased competition resulted in a serious slump in Retail Credit's life insurance and credit reporting activities.

1923: The company forms Credit Service Exchange, a credit rating operations firm.

1930: The Retail Credit Company has 81 branch offices throughout North America.

1934: Retail Credit purchased a Brooklyn credit agency, Retailers Commercial Agency, Inc.

1937: Nearly three-quarters of all the company's inspection forms were being filled out by full-time investigators, operating out of 96 Retail Credit offices in cities across North America.

1941: When the war began for the United States, the company was providing 7.5 million reports a year; many of its inspectors, however, were drafted into the military and other employees left the enterprise to engage in war-related endeavours.

1944: The volume of reports produced had sunk to six million.

1965: The company sold stock to the public for the first time.

1968: They took their company, TRW, into the credit reporting industry by acquiring a company called Credit Data. A railcar leasing company called the Union Tank Car Company created TransUnion as its parent holding company.

1971: Retail credit reporting also began to be governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which took effect in April of this year.

1975: Retail Credit was so hated and distrusted that it decided to change its name to Equifax in the hopes that rebranding would shake off some of its bad reputations.

1976: The company continued to see massive growth and rebranded as Equifax.

1979: The company began diversifying, acquiring Elrick & Lavidge, a Chicago firm that performed marketing surveys, and merging it into the company's Marketing Information Services subsidiary. 

1986: The company amasses data on more than 150 million consumers in 28 states.

1988: In April, the company established a marketing services division, whose first project was to develop a direct-mail program to sell home mortgages for a Midwestern insurance company. The company now covers all 50 states, with revenue of $743 million.

1989: Equifax also divested itself of two unprofitable units, Equifax Insurance Systems and Enercon, Inc. Equifax forms an alliance with CSC Credit Services.

1990: In addition to the formation of a technology division, brought about by the consolidation of the company's activities in that field, Equifax also acquired Telecredit, Inc., a Los Angeles credit bureau that provided check and credit card authorization services, for $457 million. The company's purchase of Telecredit was complicated by a sizable drop in the value of Equifax stock, as investors grew concerned about the stability of the company's profits in an economic downturn.

1991: Later this year, the company bought out its British partner to form Equifax Europe.

1992: Equifax agreed to provide consumers with a toll-free number and to begin investigating disputes within 30 days. Per Fortune's article, it underwent new efforts to focus on consumer services.

1993: With the acquisition of Integratec Inc., Equifax gained a leading provider of debt collection and other back-office services for credit card issuers and other lenders.

1994: Equifax acquired three more healthcare information firms, giving it a substantial presence in claims processing.

1995: In July, Equifax acquired U.K.-based Info check Group Limited and TecniCob S.A., a French payment services firm. As TRW started to grow in the United States, a similar company called GUS was gaining popularity in the UK. TRW put its business up for sale and GUS made an offer.

1996: Once GUS bought the company, it rebranded as Experian.

1997: The company also had a division selling specialist credit information to the insurance industry but spun off this service, including the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange (CLUE) database as ChoicePoint.

2001: Equifax formerly offered digital certification services, which it sold to GeoTrust in September.

2002: The business acquired TrueCredit.com and entered the direct-to-consumer market, giving consumers access to services online.

2010: In October, Equifax announced it was acquiring Anakam, an identity verification software company headquartered in San Diego, California, which invented and pioneered SMS (text-message-based) two-factor authentication.

2011: Equifax purchased eThority, a business intelligence (BI) company headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, in October. eThority is partnering with TALX, a St Louis-based business unit of Equifax, and remained in Charleston.

2015: Veda had previously acquired the Australian market research and opinion polling company ReachTEL in September, which continues to produce opinion polls in Australia.

2016: Equifax acquired the Australasian company Veda, the largest credit reference agency in Australia at the time.

2017: Equifax announced it had suffered a security breach. Equifax is the victim of a massive cyber hack, which is believed to have exposed the personal, confidential information of about 145 million Americans.

2020: Experian had a data breach that impacted up to 24 million South African consumers and 800,000 businesses.

2021: In February, Experian announced it was investigating the possibility that it was involved in a data breach with its Brazilian customers.

To be the global leader in information solutions that creates unparalleled insights to solve customer challenges.

Equifax's Vision is to be the global leader in information solutions that creates unparalleled insights to solve customer challenges. Good corporate governance is vital to meeting our performance goals by ensuring that our governing processes run smoothly and efficiently and we are prepared to adequately and timely meet the challenges and opportunities posed in our competitive environment.