Equifax Collections Solution Transforms Debt Recovery Process

LAS VEGAS, Feb. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX) today announced at the 2011 Debt Buyers Association (DBA) International Annual Conference the launch of a breakthrough recovery scoring solution for the collections market. Recovery Navigator™ is the industry's first solution to leverage both credit and income data to predict the likelihood that a charged-off account will make a payment within 12 months. Using this solution, collection entities and debt buyers can identify accounts with the highest propensity and ability to pay, improve recovery margins and enhance debt-buying decisions.    

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Continued high unemployment and escalating consumer bankruptcies underscore the critical need for this new solution. Faced with these economic pressures, companies that continue with a "business as usual" approach will find it challenging to make effective segmentation and prioritization decisions. To compete effectively, businesses must be able to assess debtors' ability and willingness to pay.      

"Recovery models must rely on more than credit data to provide a complete picture of portfolio collectability," said Joel Milne, vice president, US Information Solutions, Equifax.  "Recovery Navigator is designed to outperform other solutions in the market by leveraging unique data assets that are critical when evaluating debt portfolios and their potential ROI. Equipped with an industry solution like Recovery Navigator, businesses can benefit from enhanced performance throughout the collections lifecycle."  

Equifax developed Recovery Navigator by analyzing debt patterns and other variables across a number of industries, especially credit card portfolios. Based on its research, Equifax designed a highly predictive solution that combines its extensive credit data with proprietary debt-to-income analytics and custom modeled income data. Leveraging these differentiated data assets, Recovery Navigator calculates a numeric score to predict ability to pay and determine the collections potential of a debt portfolio under consideration for purchase. Scores range from 1 to 999, with higher scores representing a greater likelihood of collection.  

The incorporation of Equifax's unique income data makes Recovery Navigator an effective solution across all market segments, especially the thin-file population.  The solution also integrates seamlessly with existing collections products, enabling customers to correlate the probability of payment to the collection strategy. With this insight, businesses can improve the management of debt portfolios by refining treatment strategies and prioritizing collection spend based on key metrics, such as capture rate of paying accounts and dollars collected.

Recovery Navigator is part of Equifax's portfolio of collections solutions, which include skip-locate tools, portfolio monitoring, scoring and account review products. Equifax is showcasing its collections solutions in booth #511 at the DBA Conference. For more information about Equifax collections solutions, visit www.equifax.com/collections/en_us.

About Equifax (www.equifax.com)

Equifax empowers businesses and consumers with information they can trust. A global leader in information solutions, we leverage one of the largest sources of consumer and commercial data, along with advanced analytics and proprietary technology, to create customized insights that enrich both the performance of businesses and the lives of consumers.

With a strong heritage of innovation and leadership, Equifax continuously delivers innovative solutions with the highest integrity and reliability.  Businesses – large and small – rely on us for consumer and business credit intelligence, portfolio management, fraud detection, decisioning technology, marketing tools, and much more.  We empower individual consumers to manage their personal credit information, protect their identity, and maximize their financial well-being.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Equifax Inc. operates in the U.S. and 15 other countries throughout North America, Latin America and Europe. Equifax is a member of Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500® Index. Our common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EFX.

SOURCE Equifax