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Contact:
Jennifer Finke for Experian
312 596 3518 Telephone
Jennifer_Finke@chi.bm.com Email

Experian’s VeriScore^SM delivers increased customer acquisition and investment returns for top financial institutions

Real-time solution enables financial marketers to augment traditional credit scores to boost customer prospects

Schaumburg, Ill., July 28, 2004 – Experian^®, a global information solutions company, today announced significant results experienced by several top financial services companies using Experian’s VeriScore. VeriScore, a custom analytical solution, improves the performance of marketing campaigns by identifying which customers will be the most responsive. The VeriScore process identifies prospects’ likely level of response and profitability based on a custom analysis that leverages Experian’s vast array of marketing data. To date, financial institutions have seen up to 50 percent improvement in promotional return on investments targeting profitable customers using VeriScore.

While continuity companies, such as Audio Book Club, a subsidiary of MediaBay, Inc., (NASDAQ: MBAY), have traditionally taken advantage of the VeriScore solution, the product has most recently attracted special interest from financial services companies looking for ways to improve customer acquisition and targeting performance. VeriScore helps companies manage acquisition lists, achieve higher response rates, maintain customer approval levels, and develop profitable "Invitation to Apply" (ITA) approaches. VeriScore also provides targeted consumer marketing lists, resulting in improved credit screening applications and emerging consumer targeting, helping companies target individuals with little or no credit history.

"VeriScore is the leading analytical solution for financial institutions mining through the prospect universe to identify and obtain new customers – in both batch and real-time environments," said Marc Fanelli, vice president of Customer Insight for Experian. "Our customers are seeing an opportunity to capture target audiences who have not been solicited through pre-screen programs so they can drive acquisition costs down, lessen their exposure to non-payment, and target audiences they’re missing, such as young adults or recent immigrants."

Companies are experiencing the following business benefits from using VeriScore:

• Higher approval rates and lower promotion expenses
• Conversion of rental list purchase programs into profitable campaigns
• Reduced mail costs with targeted suppressions
• Rapid overnight turnaround for pre or post-merge processing

"The higher approval and conversion rates institutions are experiencing by using VeriScore validate that financial marketers can augment traditional credit scoring methodologies to acquire new customers, decrease costs, and improve their targeting strategies," said Chris Callero, president, Experian Credit Services. "Our competitors are just getting up to speed with what we’ve known for years; that a continued, single focus on the pre-approved customer or prospect is no longer enough in today’s competitive financial services landscape."

Experian recently worked with a Top 10 national bank to help decrease the volume of wasted mailings, reduce list acquisition and mailing costs, and maintain customer response and approval levels. Using a custom VeriScore scoring process, the national bank was able to identify responsive and likely to be approved consumers, and suppress poor performing names from third party lists. Overall, the bank reduced mail expenses by more than 14 percent annually, improved its average prospect net approval rate by 22 percent, and decreased overall average customer acquisition costs by seven percent.

For continuity companies such as Audio Book Club, Inc., Michael Bloom, senior vice president of Information Systems and Internet Development, Audio Book Club, Inc., says, "We were able to seamlessly integrate Experian’s real-time solution into our operations. After only a few months of initial testing, we believe VeriScore should help us significantly reduce our exposure to non-payment, all the while remaining transparent to our customers."

About Experian
Experian is a global leader in providing information solutions to organizations and consumers. It helps organizations find, develop and manage profitable customer relationships by providing information, decision-making solutions and processing services. It empowers consumers to understand, manage and protect their personal information and assets. Experian works with more than 40,000 clients across diverse industries, including financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, insurance, retail and catalogue, automotive, manufacturing, leisure, utilities, property, e-commerce and government. Experian is a subsidiary of GUS plc and has headquarters in Nottingham, UK, and Costa Mesa, California. Its 13,000 people support clients in more than 60 countries. Annual sales exceed $2.3 billion.

For more information, visit the company's web site on www.experian.com.