In 2023, 70% of our new models worldwide were built using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools.
Here are some examples of how Equifax is currently using AI in Australia and New Zealand.
1. One Score
Equifax is using AI to deliver our most predictive score yet.
We know how important it is to be able to explain and justify the basis for a credit decision. It’s not just lenders and regulators seeking greater explainability, but consumers too want the transparency of understanding why a loan was approved or denied.
Our new generation of credit score - Equifax One Score - delivers a highly predictable, explainable score by taking the transparency associated with conventional models and combining this with high-performing neural networks.
Equifax One Score provides financial institutions with an enhanced ability to approve more consumers for credit without taking on additional risk, as well as better explain their lending decisions to customers. This transparency into the factors that contributed to an individual’s score supports a better customer experience by providing an incentivised path to improve financial health.
Equifax One Score is our most predictive consumer score yet. By leveraging more data and using Explainable AI to drive greater transparency, this score created an opportunity to build consumer engagement and trust.
2. Explainability & Transparency
Equifax is enabling the benefit of ML while ensuring that lending decisions can be explained.
AI is hugely powerful - but the challenge with AI and machine learning is that it usually operates as a black box, meaning there is a lack of visibility around how decisions are made.
At Equifax, we’ve developed an entire suite of Explainable AI techniques unlike anything else in the Australian market. Explainable AI is the standard Equifax approach for the use of AI and ML in credit models. It consists of a patent portfolio centred around specific ML models that support ethical AI, in part by generating logical and actionable reason codes for the consumer.
NeuroDecision Technology is just one example of our Explainable AI capability that enables the benefit of ML while ensuring that credit and lending decisions can be explained.
From a financial inclusion point of view, the combination of traditional and non-traditional data with Explainable AI in Equifax One Score has helped drive greater financial inclusion, resulting in a 15% uplift in thin files to thick files.
3. The Equifax Cloud and Data Fabric
The Equifax Cloud, powered by AI,enables faster solution implementation, cloud-native model deployment, and quicker consumer decision-making.
In today’s always-on world, speed is a competitive advantage. The Equifax Cloud, combined with the power of AI, facilitates faster solution implementation, cloud-native model deployment, and expedited decisioning.
The Equifax Cloud has been custom built to maintain and manage the large volume of diverse datasets needed to maximise AI performance in risk modelling and identity protection and fraud prevention solutions.
The successful use of AI requires deep, accurate, and high-quality data. Central to the Equifax Cloud is our custom data fabric - an adaptable structure that unifies our proprietary differentiated data (from over 100 siloed data sources) while also enabling us to manage that data in keeping with regulatory requirements. Data fabric offers the ability to ingest and analyse data at scale and enhance the keying and linking of our data assets, for rapid delivery of multi-data risk modelling solutions as well as identity resolution and fraud prevention offerings.
Contact Equifax to learn how our AI-led solutions can benefit your business.
