Happy State Bank and Trust Selects Experian's Instant Prescreen to Speed Its Decisioning Process and Target Customers with Offers for Overdraft Protection Credit Lines

COSTA MESA, Calif., Sept. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Experian® today announced that Happy State Bank and Trust, a large regional financial institution based in Texas, has selected Experian's Instant Prescreen and VantageScore® products to improve its decisioning process and reach the appropriate customers with offers for overdraft protection credit lines.  

Happy State Bank and Trust provides personal and commercial banking services to 19 communities in 28 locations throughout Texas. The bank was looking for tools that were cost-effective and fast to implement and required no internal IT support. The solution also needed to help the bank generate additional revenue by cross-selling overdraft protection credit lines to creditworthy customers when they opened an account.

"We selected Experian's Instant Prescreen and VantageScore because the products can be accessed through a hosted environment, so there was minimal capital investment required on our end. Another added benefit is that the Experian products were already integrated with our existing QualiFile® service, which enabled us to implement these new capabilities in less than three weeks," said Greg Houlette, senior vice president at Happy State Bank and Trust. "We did not need to devote our own resources toward sophisticated analytical applications. We simply draw on the Experian tools on demand through its Decisioning as a Service(SM) capability. This provides us greater flexibility in deploying decisioning strategies based on our specific business needs, budget and available resources. In addition, we are taking advantage of VantageScore, the best-in-class scoring model, to ensure that we are doing everything we can to make the right decisions."  

How it works

When a customer opens a new deposit account at a Happy State Bank branch, the bank will immediately access Experian's Instant Prescreen to prequalify the customer for overdraft protection. Experian's Instant Prescreen pulls a current credit report and posts a "soft" inquiry that won't impact the customer's credit score. This information is used to identify quality applicants (screening out high-risk applicants) while simultaneously targeting the most receptive customers with the right offers. Happy State Bank's qualification criteria are guided by Experian's Strategy Management(SM) decision engine to determine the best cross-sell opportunity for each potential customer. If the customer passes Happy State Bank's predefined qualification criteria, he or she is offered overdraft protection.

VantageScore key to decisioning process

As a key element to the decisioning process, Instant Prescreen utilizes VantageScore, which enables Happy State Bank to increase its population of target customers for overdraft protection credit line offers while managing appropriate risk. VantageScore is the credit industry's first credit rating scale, developed jointly by Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. With VantageScore, consumer scores fall within a range of 501 to 990, with higher scores representing a lower likelihood of risk. All this functionality is delivered to Happy State Bank as part of the standard credit bureau inquiry process that the bank can access through Experian's Decisioning as a Service environment.

"In today's economy, financial institutions of all sizes are looking for cost-effective, innovative technologies and comprehensive credit models that will help them grow their business by expanding relationships with existing customers," said Steven Wagner, president of Experian Consumer Information Services. "Through the combination of Instant Prescreen and VantageScore, Happy State Bank, and hundreds of institutions like it, will be able to do this by making preapproved product offers to customers when they first open a new account. This provides the institution with the opportunity to close new product sales more quickly, since customers are instantly prequalified."  

About Experian

Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients in more than 80 countries. The company helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score and protect against identity theft.

Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended 31 March 2011 was $4.2 billion. Experian employs approximately 15,000 people in 41 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; California, US; and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com.

About Happy State Bank

The $1.6 Billion Happy State Bank, established in 1908, has 28 full-service offices and 86 ATMs in 19 communities in the Texas Panhandle including, Happy, Amarillo, Borger, Canadian, Canyon, Dalhart, Dumas, Floydada, Hereford, Lockney, Higgins, Olton, Pampa, Panhandle, Plainview, Silverton, Stratford, Sunray and Texline. Happy State Bank also owns a non-depository branch – Gold Star Trust Company which is head-quartered in Canyon, Texas.

VantageScore® is owned by VantageScore Solutions, LLC.

Experian and the Experian marks used herein are service marks or registered trademarks of Experian Information Solutions, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

Contact:
Michael Troncale
Experian Public Relations
1 714 830 5462
[email protected]

SOURCE Experian