expn otcqx expgy industry business services founded 1996 ; 20 years ago 1996 headquarters dublin republic of ireland incorporated cardinal place london united kingdom corporate office 1 2 costa mesa california united states key people don robert chairman brian cassin ceo revenue us 4 810 million 2015 3 operating income us 1 157 million 2015 3 net income us 772 million 2015 3 number of employees 17 000 2015 4 website experian.com experian plc is a global information services group with operations in 40 countries with corporate headquarters in dublin republic of ireland and operational headquarters in nottingham united kingdom ; costa mesa california united states ; s o paulo brazil ; and heredia costa rica . the company now employs 17 000 people . it is listed on the london stock exchange and is a constituent of the ftse 100 index . experian is a partner in the uk government s verify id system . contents 1 history 1.1 notable acquisitions 2 operations 3 corporate responsibility 4 sales to identity thieves 5 2015 data breach 6 see also 7 references 8 external links history edit in the uk during the 1970s gus plc a retail conglomerate with millions of customers paying for goods on credit employed john peace a computer programmer at the time to combine the mail order data from various gus businesses and create a central database to which was later added electoral roll data as well as county court judgements . 5 gus s database was commercialised in 1980 under the name commercial credit nottingham ccn . in 1996 gus plc acquired the us credit reporting business experian formerly known as trw information services from bain capital and the thomas h. lee partners 6 and merged it into ccn . 7 during the next ten years experian broadened its product range to new industry sectors beyond financial services and entered new markets such as latin america asia pacific and eastern europe . the business expanded through both organic development and acquisitions . 7 in october 2006 experian was demerged from the british company gus plc and listed on the london stock exchange . 8 in august 2005 experian accepted a settlement with the federal trade commission ftc over charges that experian had violated a previous settlement with the ftc . the ftc s allegations concerned customers who signed up for the free credit report at experian s consumerinfo.com site . the ftc alleged that ads for the free credit report did not adequately disclose that experian would automatically enroll customers in experian s 79.95 credit monitoring program . 9 10 in january 2008 experian announced that it would cut more than 200 jobs at its nottingham office as it moved development work to india to reduce costs . 11 experian shut down its canadian operations on 14 april 2009 . 12 notable acquisitions edit the acquisition in 2002 of consumerinfo.com enabled experian to start supplying credit reports to consumers enabling consumers to monitor their credit status . 13 in 2004 experian acquired cheetahmail a business founded in 1998 that provided e mail marketing software and services . 14 in the same year experian also acquired qas a supplier of contact data management and identity verification solutions . 15 in 2005 experian acquired pricegrabber for 485 million . 16 also in 2005 experian acquired footfall an information provider to the retail and retail property industries 17 experian footfall . still in 2005 experian acquired lowermybills.com for us 330 million . 18 in september 2006 experian announced its purchase of northern credit bureaus located in quebec canada . 19 in june 2007 experian acquired an initial 65 % stake in serasa the market leading credit bureau in brazil and now the largest credit bureau in the world . the purchase price for the initial stake was 1.2 bn . this was the first acquisition for experian in latin america . 20 in mid 2007 experian acquired a number of software companies with products that filled gaps in their existing portfolio . the intention was to be able to offer experian s customers an experian branded product for all phases of the customer lifecycle . these included emailing solution a french e mail marketing company . the intention was to grow the existing cheetahmail business with the acquisition of this new client portfolio . 21 hitwise an internet monitor that collects data directly from information service provider networks . 22 tallyman 23 debt collection management software from bristol based talgentra . 24 experian purchased rentbureau in june 2010 which houses rental payment histories on over 7 million us residents ; this data will now be included in experian us consumer credit reports as of january 2011 . 25 in march 2012 rental bureau launched in the uk . by including rental payment data in credit reports several million people living in private rented accommodation will have the ability to access more and lower cost credit deals . 26 in august 2010 experian became the first cicra licensed credit bureau to go live in india . since then the company has provided experian credit reports to lenders and consumers in compliance with the reserve bank of india s rbi guidelines . 27 experian purchased a majority stake in techlightenment on 17 january 2011 as part of experian s strategy to grow its digital marketing capabilities . techlightenment is a data driven technology and marketing company based in the uk which helps clients to leverage advertising through key social media platforms . techlightenment will form part of the uk experian marketing services division . 28 in may 2011 experian acquired a 98 % holding in computec s.a. a credit services information provider based in colombia for the equivalent of us 380m . 29 in june 2011 experian acquired medical present value inc. mpv a provider of data analytics and software in the us healthcare payments market . its products are used by healthcare providers to manage payments between patients commercial payers such as insurance companies and government programmes . 30 in july 2011 experian acquired virid interatividade digital ltda virid an email marketing company offering email delivery email based behavioural segmentation real time campaign reporting mobile delivery and social media integration in brazil . 31 in december 2011 experian acquired garlik ltd a provider of web monitoring services in the uk . garlik helps consumers to protect themselves from the risks of identity theft and financial fraud . 32 in may 2012 experian announced it had signed an agreement to sell pricegrabber its price comparison shopping business and north america online lead generation activities which operate under the brands classes usa and lowermybills to ybrant digital limited a digital marketing services business based in hyderabad india . 33 however since then experian has announced that ybrant digital has failed to comply with its obligation to close the transaction and experian considers ybrant digital to be in breach of contract . 34 in february 2013 experian launched its consumer credit bureau in australia . experian will provide consumer credit reports to utility financial and telecommunication companies . this launch follows the passing of the privacy amendment bill in november 2012 which will mean a step change for lenders who will now be able to take positive in addition to negative credit history into account when making lending decisions . 35 in october 2013 experian bought 41st parameter a fraud prevention vendor increasing its presence in the fraud prevention market and extending its presence into web fraud transaction protection . 36 then in november 2013 experian bought passport health communications a data and software provider enabling it to offer clients in the us healthcare industry a one stop shop to manage risk and to satisfy their payments requirements . 37 operations edit experian s principal lines of business are credit services marketing services decision analytics and consumer services . the company collects information on people businesses motor vehicles and insurance . it also collects lifestyle data from on and off line surveys . experian provides services in north america latin america uk and ireland europe middle east and africa and asia pacific and reports its financial performance across those regions . activities in these regions are grouped into four principal activities credit services decision analytics marketing services and consumer services . like the other major credit reporting bureaus experian is chiefly regulated in the united states by the fair credit reporting act fcra . the fair and accurate credit transactions act of 2003 signed into law in 2003 amended the fcra to require the credit reporting companies to provide consumers with one free copy of their credit report per 12 month period . like its main competitors transunion and equifax experian markets credit reports directly to consumers . experian heavily markets its for profit credit reporting service freecreditreport.com and all three agencies have been criticised and even sued for selling credit reports that can be obtained at no cost . 38 39 experian us handles its credit disputes in its national consumer assistance center ncac in allen texas . one may contact the ncac once they have a copy of their personal credit report by calling the number that is located on the personal credit report itself . experian opened a second ncac in santiago chile in march 2007 . many divisions of the allen ncac as well as several other business functions including software development have been relocated to the chile location . experian refuses to follow california law with respect to disputes and relies only on the fair credit reporting act . experian provides regional data at nationalscoreindex.com which shows average credit scores by region and zip code as well as various other measures of household debt . the site does not indicate if it uses a fico based credit score the new vantagescore or some other scoring model . the company s largest operation is experian north america a consumer credit reporting agency that is considered one of the three largest american credit agencies along with equifax and transunion . corporate responsibility edit experian states that its corporate responsibility initiatives are focused on six key responsibilities communities consumers employers data products and services and environment . in july 2012 experian launched a free online teaching resource called values money and me designed to help primary school pupils explore both practical and emotional issues around managing money . the tool aims to give young children a head start in life by helping develop their financial knowledge and abilities as well as their attitudes and values towards money . values money and me has been awarded a quality mark by personal finance education group a uk financial education charity . 40 sales to identity thieves edit experian subsidiary and data aggregator court ventures sold personally identifiable information on at least hundreds of thousands of americans to hieu minh ngo 41 a man in vietnam who then resold the information through the identity fraud enabling websites superget.info and findget.me . 42 43 44 45 46 the information offered for anonymous sale on these websites included individual s name address social security number date of birth place of work duration of work state driver s licence number mother s maiden name bank account number s bank routing number s email account s and other account passwords . 46 2015 data breach edit letter from experian north america ceo craig boundy informing t mobile customer their personal information was compromised in experian server hack . on september 15 2015 experian servers were hacked . as many as 15 million people who used the company s services among them customers of american cellular company t mobile who had applied for experian credit checks may have had their private information exposed . 47 see also edit companies portal callcredit compuscan credit bureau credit rating agency freecreditreport.com identity theft intelliscore references edit feisst melanie 2006 07 27 . ireland has the edge says expansive gus . retrieved 2016