Transunion

Overview

In 1968, the Union Tank Car Company, which was a railcar leasing company, established TransUnion as its parent holding company. In 1969, they acquired Credit Bureau of Cook County (CBCC) and joined the credit reporting industry.

TransUnion has grown to become one of the world’s foremost global information and insights companies that, with more than 8,000 global associates, is currently servicing more than 30 countries on five continents.

Working internationally for more than 30 years, TransUnion provides “advanced global solutions” such as CreditVision®, IDVision, DecisionEdge®, and the newest and innovative Prama suite. They also offer more localized solutions to meet the individual needs of their clients.

They serve a broad range of industries such as insurance, financial services, retail, telco, as well as the government. Their mission is to equip businesses to operate, compete, and expand within their respective industries. They offer “consumer empowerment solutions” in India, Hong Kong, Canada, and South Africa through various channels.

Here are more relevant facts about TransUnion:

• They hold a consumer credit database of 1 billion consumers in more than 30 countries.
• Their global consumer base is more than 65,000 businesses.
• They hold more than 30 petabytes of data.
• They possess more than 90,000 data sources, which include financial institutions, public records repositories, and private databases.
• They receive more than 3 billion updates every month from data providers.

Their most powerful solutions are provided in detail below:

Prama: Features a portfolio of innovative, multifaceted data and analytics abilities that equips customers to take action on insights discovered by simply pushing a button. Clients are able to identify market trends, investigate the most pertinent segments, and make strategic decisions and changes based on that data.

CreditVision®: In order to gain a complete insight on customers, CreditVision® provides credit performance trends and behaviors, enriched data, and analytics. This enables clients to target the right prospects, make quality lending decisions, and manage risk.

IDVision: This solution features a combined suite of Identity Decisions and Fraud Analytics, offering a more comprehensive view of both online and offline consumer identities and any suspicion of fraud. It provides precise insights to proceed with ideal customers through verification and authentication, minimizing fraud.

DecisionEdge®: A potent yet pliable suite of data, analytics, and decisioning solutions, converting insights into more strategic and “actionable” decisions. It enables clients to “optimize smart risk”, develop practical marketing strategies and expand customer relationships with assurance.

On May 18, 2018, TransUnion made the announcement that it was to acquire iovation in order to reinforce its fraud and identity solutions. Iovation was founded in 2004 and it aims to protect online businesses from fraud with its online fraud protection as well as its consumer authentication solutions. It boasts the world’s biggest database of reputation insights.

Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, iovation’s unique selling point is that it offers a “frictionless”, versatile, and a real-time SaaS solution for both fraud prevention and user authentication. It notifies clients if the customer using the site is allowed to use that account or poses a risk based on certain criteria assessing the transaction. It’s core services include customer authentication, fraud prevention, multi factor authentication, as well as transaction reputation scoring.

Here are some relevant facts about iovation:

Since its inception in 2004, iovation has protected more than 54 billion customer transactions.

Both customers and analysts have submitted 83 million reports of both abuse and fraud attempts.

An average of 700,000 fraudulent transactions are prevented daily.

Some of iovation’s products include:

FraudForce: This product provides real-time “device reputation” and “verification insight” in order to discern good customers. It also prevents online fraud.

SureScore: A machine learning product that is able to predict transaction results based on transaction, device trust, and behavioral indicators.

ClearKey: This offers “passwordless” authentication that is based on stringent device fingerprinting as well as contextual insight.

LaunchKey: Multi-factor authentication allows mobile apps to provide advanced knowledge factors, leading edge biometrics, proximity and location methods for robust yet streamlined access to any service or site.

Jim Peck, TransUnion’s president and chief executive officer released a statement about the acquisition:

“TransUnion has long been at the forefront of developing innovative fraud and identity solutions, and together with iovation, we will create an unmatched network of offline and online identities that will help make transactions faster and more secure, while providing a frictionless experience for consumers.”

Chris Cartwright, president of TransUnion’s USIS division added:

“Furthermore, our broad coverage of identities and devices will enable continued innovation in advanced analytics to confidently detect threats across channels, markets and geographies, to equip customers to grow and differentiate their businesses by emphasizing superior user experiences at all touchpoints.”