Equifax continues to expand its international presence with the acquisition of Data-Crédito, the largest consumer credit reporting agency in the Dominican Republic. By bringing the power of the Equifax Cloud™ to credit reporting and scoring in the Dominican Republic, Equifax will enable financial institutions to gain new insights into consumers’ financial profiles as part of the lending process, helping them to responsibly open up new mainstream financial services opportunities to underbanked individuals.
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We are reinvesting our free cash flow in strategic, bolt-on M&A that expands our global presence and capabilities while staying true to our company purpose – helping people to live their financial best,” said Mark W. Begor, CEO of Equifax. “Including Data-Crédito, we have completed 11 acquisitions totaling more than $3 billion in the past 18 months that strengthen and broaden Equifax. More data helps our customers drive better decisions for consumers. With the acquisition of Data-Crédito, we will bring powerful new insights to lenders and service providers that can help them better understand their customers. Nearly half of the 10 million people in the Dominican Republic are unbanked or underbanked, making Data-Crédito critical to opening new opportunities.”
Founded in 1998, Data-Crédito provides consumer credit bureau services, analytics and scores. The company’s established value proposition and experienced local team sets a strong foundation for Equifax to increase business leadership in risk analysis, decisioning, and fraud prevention platforms in the Dominican market.
“Equifax is the only cloud-native consumer credit reporting agency. By optimizing our cloud-based global technology framework, we’re able to drive relevant, market-focused innovation. We’re also able to scale and adapt for the specific needs of the countries in which we operate,” said Lisa Nelson, president of Equifax International. “At the same time, we’re also focused on bringing more of our existing Equifax enterprise strengths into our international regions. More than 4,000 organizations in Latin America are current Data-Crédito customers, with projected expansion to be fueled by the addition of differentiated data assets and analytics that ‘Only Equifax’ can provide.”
Data-Crédito is now part of the International business unit at Equifax and will continue to be led by Alberto Adam, Corporate Vice President. Adam commented: “The combination of Equifax and Data-Crédito will improve the credit landscape in the Dominican Republic, helping customers generate strategic insights to make better decisions. Equifax’s experience and innovative solutions in the region along with our technical and analytical expertise will help to address the country’s need to expand credit access for consumers and small-to-medium sized enterprises.”
At Equifax (NYSE: EFX), we believe knowledge drives progress. As a global data, analytics, and technology company, we play an essential role in the global economy by helping financial institutions, companies, employers, and government agencies make critical decisions with greater confidence.