Experian stands up to be counted in the fight against fraud, to bring confirmed and suspicious fraudulent information to the awareness of credit grantors. The country`s two leading bureaux have been awarded an exclusive agreement to host the Shared Fraud Forum`s data within the formal structures of the bureaux.
Banking, cellular and retail fraud experiences have been shared privately and exclusively over the past few years under a gentleman`s agreement structure among certain of SA`s major lenders. The previous arrangement, without intention, had the effect of not making this powerful database available to all credit grantors. The privately shared data of the Shared Fraud Forum will now reside within the structures of Experian`s fraud prevention division. The data will be stored on a closed user group basis, and any view-access to the data will work on the basis of reciprocity.
Appointed spokesperson for the Shared Fraud Forum, Brett van Aswegen (Lewis Stores), had the following to say: "There has been a unanimous decision by all members to move the data to the bureaux. We do not wish to be involved in the detail of managing the data, and the compliance issues surrounding it, we want to use it to our benefit. We can focus on getting members to share their experiences now, rather than being concerned about data.
"From a Lewis perspective we want to be able to interrogate this data at the same time as our credit enquiry so we can further protect our risk, offering better in-store customer service to our good customers and prevent giving credit to the fraudster."
Experian will be able to offer members the ability to identify matches from within this data against far more than an ID number look-up. Our existing fraud solutions already offer matching against suspect and confirmed employer details, full personal details and all address details as used in a credit application
Reilly (Experian Managing Director) and Malan (Experian Fraud Specialist Consultant) believe this is the first step in the right direction to consolidating fraud data sharing in South Africa.
According to Malan, there have been too many initiatives without a solid data management foundation and infrastructure to comprehensively build databases to store fraud information and learn from it. By utilising Experian`s analytical capabilities in addition to our proven mass data management capabilities Experian is well placed to take fraud prevention to new heights.
Much has been discussed in the credit industry about the high costs of sharing fraud data. The approach of the Shared Fraud Forum is to keep membership easy and affordable for anyone that can benefit from this data.
For further press information please contact:
Stephanie Brown Tel: (011) 799 3400 or sbrown@experian.co.za
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Experian is a global leader in providing information solutions to organisations and consumers. It helps organisations find, develop and manage profitable customer relationships by providing information, decision-making solutions and processing services. It empowers consumers to understand, manage and protect their personal information and assets. Experian works with more than 50 000 clients across diverse industries, including financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, insurance, retail and catalogue, automotive, manufacturing, leisure, utilities, e-commerce, property and government.
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