When it comes to financial inclusion, it’s easy for some people to turn a blind eye. However, when banks and fintechs help to solve gaps in the current environment, there’s more potential to boost everyone’s financial health.

Lloyd Pitchford, CFO at Experian, is working on promoting financial inclusion via Experian’s Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) program, which helps Experian improve its performance across ESG matters, including supporting financial inclusion and financial health.

We spoke to Pitchford about the program and his view of the current financial inclusion environment and how the industry should respond.

How have you seen financial inclusion awareness evolve into what it is today? What has prompted the increased awareness?

Lloyd Pitchford: The United Nations includes access to financial services, such as credit and microfinance, among its Sustainable Development Goals. Access to affordable credit opens the door to opportunities for people to transform their lives – from homes and healthcare to education and entrepreneurship. This has never been more important than it is today, following the global pandemic.

There are times in most of our lives where we can’t get access to the financial system in a way that we want, be it for a mortgage, a car, or a business loan. We’ve all experienced the frustration when you feel you’re on the outside of the system and you can’t do the things you want for yourself or your family. At Experian, it’s our job to change that. We want to make sure everybody is included and has access to fair and affordable financial products. Financial inclusion is fundamental to our business.

When it comes to financial inclusion, what are some of Experian’s offerings you are most proud of?

Pitchford: As the pandemic took hold in 2020, we stepped in with data and analytics to support governments, health services and national emergency response efforts. Our data and analytics helped them plan ahead and direct health care and financial support to the most vulnerable people through major initiatives such as COVID Radar in Brazil and Experian CORE (COVID Outlook & Response Evaluator) in the USA.

It soon became clear that the impact, not just on physical health, but on financial health, would be far-reaching for people around the world. We looked at how we could mobilize our expertise and resources to help communities through the crisis and focused on financial education as the best way to strengthen their resilience and support their road to recovery.

Through the launch of our United for Financial Health programm we rapidly established 11 NGO partnerships across our biggest consumer markets to deliver targeted financial education for some of the communities hit hardest by COVID-19. By the end of the year, we had reached nearly 35 million people, more than double our original goal of 15 million, and we’re not stopping there. We aim to reach 100 million people by 2024.

Part of our efforts include our member relationships around the world. This year, we surpassed the milestone of 100 million direct relationships with consumers globally and delivered further innovations to support people through our business, such as the launch of products like Experian Boost in the UK and Serasa Score Turbo in Brazil. This, of course, is on top of our ground-breaking Experian Boost launch in the United States a few years ago. Our goal is to have a direct relationship with as many people as possible; to truly become the Consumers’ Credit Bureau and power financial opportunities for all.

What advice would you give other incumbents who are trying to drive financial inclusion within their organizations?

Pitchford: I would point to our culture of innovation. It helps us harness opportunities to drive business growth. We are continually investing in product innovation and new sources of data to address emerging market opportunities that can make a real difference to global communities. In 2020, around 1,000 innovators from across Experian joined our annual Future of Information Conference – which was held virtually because of the pandemic – to encourage them to think differently in their work. Topics included fairness in artificial intelligence, transforming agribusiness, and enhancing the consumer healthcare experience. Teams at our DataLabs in Brazil, Singapore, the U.K. and the U.S.A. tap into our culture of innovation to continually create new solutions to global challenges. The result of all this is that our Social Innovation products have now reached 61 million people since 2013. We aim to reach 100 million by 2025.

What challenges exist in serving underbanked communities as an incumbent? Would it be easier as a startup?

Pitchford: Our annual Sustainable Business Report notes that more than a billion people in Asia Pacific lack access to formal financial services, 45 million in the U.S.A. have no credit profile or are unscoreable, 45 million in Brazil are unbanked, and over five million in the U.K. have no credit history. So we know we’ve got more work to do and we remain focused on using our business to make real and sustainable change. With social innovation running so deeply through the core of our culture, and our commitment to improving global financial health front and center of our thinking, we will continue to push to find new solutions to help people, serve communities and protect the environment, helping to create a better future for all.