Risk Solutions

COVID-19 has pushed into the limelight the issue of large firms paying their small business suppliers late. But long before this pandemic, habitual late payment practices have challenged the cash flow of many a small business.

Ready, set, go. Equifax data scientists around the globe sprung into action. The project was to investigate how to classify bank transaction data to make it more meaningful. Could it be categorised in a way that would enrich insights and help lenders better assess risk, ultimately improving customer experience? Competitors were furnished with raw unstructured transaction data from Spain and told to use advanced analytics and innovative techniques to solve this challenge.

The escalation of credit issues under COVID-19 has introduced a new challenge to the hardship strategy of lenders. With a significant increase in the number of accounts requiring financial assistance, the ability to assist customers to better financial health has come under strain. Managing a large volume of customers – each with a different circumstance – lenders must find a way to ensure customers who need the most support are the ones to receive it.

As lenders attempt to navigate through this period of enormous market uncertainty, Equifax will provide a series of regular analysis. Presenting a clear picture of the future for credit markets is challenging in the short term, we hope to provide some clarity on what trends are developing, what challenges are foreseeable, how you can assess the risks to your portfolios and make prudent changes to your risk management controls.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has taken centre stage during COVID-19, supplementing the work of scientific and medical experts in fighting this pandemic. There are many global examples of AI technologies solving problems across all stages of this crisis. An Australian-developed AI diagnostic tool, for example, is helping hospital staff around the world accurately detect COVID-19 and assist in its containment. An AI-powered research database developed in the US is enabling scientists to discover coronavirus vaccine and treatment literature resources at unprecedented speed. In the UK, University of Cambridge researchers are using AI to analyse patient information in order to predict the risk of COVID-19 patients developing more severe disease and needing respirator support. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened the already complicated relationship Australian consumers have with data.

While Australians tend to be highly conscious of their data privacy, there is less resistance to the idea that data can be used as an asset to be traded for value. This value might take the form of a personal benefit, like a price reduction, or a societal benefit, like improving public health. Indeed, data is playing a crucial public health role in Australia’s fight against COVID-19, such as informing people where virus clusters are emerging and helping with contact tracing of those affected by the virus.

The COVID-19 outbreak is a stark reminder of how important it is to insulate against risk. If you’re a trade creditor, a financial institution or you hire equipment, registering on the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) is an effective way to boost your rights when faced with customer insolvency. That includes any business that supplies goods and services on credit terms, leases or hires goods, consigns goods to others or lends money.

As lenders attempt to navigate through this period of enormous market uncertainty, Equifax will provide a series of regular analysis. While a clear picture of the future for credit markets is challenging in the short term, we hope to provide some clarity on what trends are developing, what challenges are foreseeable, how you can assess the risks to your portfolios and make prudent changes to your risk management controls.

Opinion piece by Moses Samaha, Executive General Manager, 3 April 2020

The new vernacular of flattening the curve is not a term that anyone could have anticipated as being the most used phrase of 2020, but it is, so what does that mean for lending decisions and how is it impacting the Australian economy?

You want background credit information on a business prospect, so you turn to a commercial credit report. When the report doesn’t raise any red flags about the company, you decide to go ahead and start doing business with them. 

The risk of loss is significant if your new customer doesn’t pay their bills, but at the end of the day, you figure the report would have warned you of anything untoward. But would it?