Our history in the UK and Ireland

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Our story is one of ground-breaking innovation. Bringing together our core capabilities; information, expertise and partnership, we have come a long way since 1980.

1980

  • Experian trace its origins to CCN, an information services business established by our former parent company, GUS

1982

  • CCN is the first to develop market and credit scoring in the UK.
  • Launched CAIS, a system allowing consumer lending organisations to share credit account information on individuals and became the UK’s leading credit bureau.

1983

  • Produced the first automated application processing system, Autoscore, now known as CEMS.

1985

1993

  • Delphi, a bureau based scorecard is launched in the UK. In the same year, Car Data Check, our vehicle provenance database, and Detect our fraud detection product came to the market place.

1997

  • CCN changed its name globally to Experian and became a leading global provider of information and decision analytics.

1998

2001

  • Experian Truvue, a customer data integration solution, was launched globally.
  • Entered the B2B list market with the launch of the National Business Database.

2002

2003

  • CreditExpert, the first online credit reporting service, is launched to consumers in the UK.
  • Acquired the direct marketing arm of Yell Data to become the leading force in business-to-business marketing in the UK.
  • GUS acquired the outstanding stake in Scorex, a global decision analytics company.

2004

  • Acquired CheetahMail, an e-mail marketing and customer intelligence solution and QAS, a leading supplier of address management software in the UK.

2005

  • Acquired Footfall, a leading provider of information and services related to numbers of people visiting retailers, shopping centres and transport locations.
  • Experian is the only UK Company to win the Business of the Year award twice – in 2003 and 2005.

2006

  • Acquired ClarityBlue to complement the database management skills in our Marketing Solutions business.
  • Acquired Experian BackgroundChecking.com, specialists in conducting identity checks on job applicants and Experian Payments, a market-leading provider of bank account validation and payment processing software.
  • Experian received four Business in the Community Big Ticks, in recognition of our long-term commitment to improving educational opportunities for people in Nottingham.
  • Our fraud business was presented with the Queens Award for Enterprise, the most prestigious accolade for business performance in the UK.
  • On the 11 October 2006, Experian became an independent company, listed on the London Stock Exchange.

2007

  • Acquired Hitwise, an Internet market intelligence company. N4 Solutions, a provider of specialist software for the mortgage and financial planning sectors, pH Group, a leading business to business analytics company and Tallyman, the market-leading solution for revenue management and collection.
  • Introduced Risk Triggers, a daily alert service which flags at-risk customers to lenders so that they can act quickly to prevent loss before they are exposed to it.
  • Developed TrendView, a new segmentation tool that helps businesses to identify new value opportunities with existing customers by monitoring and evaluating their behaviour.
  • Launched Lowermybills.co.uk to help UK consumers reduce their monthly recurring expenses online.
  • Acquired Experian Payments (originally Eiger), to provide strategic payment software services.
  • Introduced Ledger 360, an innovative new software system designed to help businesses to improve cash flow and profitability.
  • Entered into partnership with the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) to bring car status checks to the market for the time, with SIMI History Check.
  • Uploaded 2008 Electoral Register in record time and ahead of the competition.

2008

  • Launched Strategy Tree Optimisation, to help business make smarter and more informed decisions.
  • Announced enhanced data sharing initiatives, to enable lenders to closely monitor consumers' use of credit and store cards for signs of over-indebtedness, by teaming up with APACS and credit card providers.
  • Launched a comprehensive suite of collections and recoveries capabilities, to drive organisations' financial performance.
  • Became the first Credit Reference Agency to achieve the CIFAS (the UK's Fraud Prevention Service) 'superior' rating for the fifth year in a row.
  • Introduced Universal ID Check, a multi-national identity authentication system to boost the fight against fraud.
  • Launched Autocheck Timeline, a unique new feature as part of our vehicle provenance service to help dealers meet the increasing information demands of their customers.
  • On an average day, we process two million credit reference enquiries and we help our clients to make more than 20 billion decisions every year.

2009

  • Experian scooped a raft of awards and won the top accolade at the industry leading 2009 Data Strategy Awards, for the best use of data in all categories.
  • Introduced enhanced collections and recoveries management software with the latest version of Tallyman, the collections process management software which forms a core part of Experian’s strategic Debt Collection and Recovery Suite.
  • Launched Automated Vehicle Mileage Check the first compliance service of its kind for the UK’s automotive market.
  • Experian’s market leading consumer classification - Mosaic UK - was comprehensively rebuilt and updated to reflect important demographic and social changes in British society since 2003.
  • Introduced B2B Prospector a new online tool that allows businesses to quickly and simply find targeted new business leads for direct marketing campaigns.
  • Won two highly coveted Business in the Community  Big Tick' awards for its flagship community partnerships in Nottinghamshire.
  • Launched  Risk Audit Plus, the new web-based risk management service, to arm businesses with even more powerful credit risk insight.

On this business day in 2010...

  • More than 30,000 credit reports will be produced
  • More than 22,000 mainframe batch jobs will run
  • 90 million online transactions will process
  • 1,500 client media items will be handled
  • 250,000 users will be connected to our services
  • 200 change requests will be successfully implemented
  • 2,200 Automated tape requests will be serviced

...to help our customers make better decisions.

  • © Experian 2010. All rights reserved.