A new cloud foundation delivers business advantages for Equifax
About Equifax
As a global data, analytics, and technology company, Equifax plays an essential role in the global economy by helping financial institutions, companies, employees, and government agencies make critical decisions with greater confidence. Equifax’s unique blend of differentiated data, analytics, and cloud technology drives insights to power decisions to move people forward. Headquartered in Atlanta and supported by more than 11,000 employees worldwide, Equifax operates or has investments in 25 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. For more information, visit Equifax.com.
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About EPAM Systems
EPAM Systems uses its software engineering expertise to deliver next-generation solutions that help its customers turn complex business challenges into real business outcomes.
Equifax recently made a move to the cloud—a transformation enabling the company to develop innovative data-driven products and services that help its customers live their financial best.
Google Cloud results
- Adopts advanced security practices to strengthen protection of consumer data
- Drives innovation and faster time-to-market for new B2B products and services
- Expands options to help consumers establish credit histories
- Delivers consumer credit data to financial institutions in real time to facilitate faster, more-informed business decisions
Delivering real-time credit data to financial institutions
For more than 120 years, Equifax has been in the business of helping consumers, companies, employees, and government agencies make critical decisions with greater confidence. Equifax creates innovative solutions and insights designed to help consumers live their financial best and move businesses forward.
In 2017, a data breach prompted Equifax to re-evaluate its security architecture as well as nearly every other aspect of its business. This strategic decision culminated in the kickoff of a three-year digital initiative to completely transform its business and become the only cloud-native credit reporting company.
For Equifax, moving to the cloud was the optimal path to protect against security vulnerabilities, while also taking advantage of cloud infrastructure to deliver innovative new products and services to help empower consumers to live their financial best and better serve B2B customers. Bryson Koehler, Chief Technology Officer at Equifax, explains, “We all understood that the only way for us to create a sustainable, everlasting transformation of the culture was to fully commit to a cloud-native approach. Part-way measures would not be acceptable. We needed to go all in on the cloud.”
A key driver for Equifax in selecting Google Cloud was its superior security posture, including a nine-layer, zero-trust security architecture that requires verification from any person or device attempting to access the network. With Google Cloud, Equifax protects its customers’ sensitive and proprietary data with a new security approach that surpasses the standard at-rest encryption policies for a better way to securely store, transmit, and process sensitive data.
Additionally, Equifax has embraced advanced machine learning techniques to automatically detect and neutralize security threats. “This means that we are prepared not just for the threats that we know exist, but that we have the tools to combat new, unknown threats before real damage can be done,” says Koehler. “As a result, we are able to provide the business with state-of-the-art and industry-standard implementation of our security and governance policies.”
Accelerates B2B decision-making with real-time access to consumer credit data
While security was the main catalyst behind Equifax’s cloud migration, the company has also taken advantage of the cloud infrastructure and data capabilities to develop innovative products and services for its B2B clients and consumers.
Equifax engaged Google Cloud partner EPAM Systems to build a data “fabric” that would enable Equifax to organize its disparate, legacy data sources into a single, seamless structure while still keeping all critical governing and separation measures in place. While rewriting Equifax’s legacy systems to be cloud native would normally take years, EPAM successfully transformed Equifax’s mainframe application in less than one year. With EPAM’s help, Equifax is creating a valuable platform for developing modern, cloud-based applications, products, and services.
“Developing on Google Cloud allows us to innovate faster, to test out new ideas in a way that is more agile,” explains Cecilia Mao, Chief Product Officer at Equifax.
Working with Google Cloud and EPAM, Equifax can now give businesses faster access to its data. Not only does this help Equifax’s B2B customers make faster, more-informed business decisions, but it also enables them to deliver other business results that ultimately benefit consumers. For example, lenders can improve the quality of their data, avoid credit surprises, reduce the potential for overextending credit, and enhance their own reputation in the marketplace.
Democratizes access to credit resources
Over 90 million consumers in the U.S. don’t have a credit file or the background to generate a credit score. People in this group range from young adults just entering the workforce to recent immigrants. Equifax can now aggregate data from a wider variety of sources and use non-traditional credit information—data from cell phone bills, rent payment histories, car insurance payments, and more—to help these consumers establish their credit history in new ways. With greater detail about consumer transactions and financial behaviors, institutions are able to expand their customer bases, extending credit to the previously “credit invisible,” helping them to purchase that first house or start a business.
“This presents Equifax with a unique opportunity to help those individuals on their own financial journey, and it really strikes at the heart of one of our core principles: being the consumer-friendly credit agency that is working hard every day to put consumers first,” says Koehler.
Empowers an agile, “first-draft” culture with Google Workspace
Equifax has also adopted Google Workspace to improve productivity and collaboration for its workforce of 22,000 employees. “We were all in with Google,” says Mao. “Not just with Google Cloud, but with Google Workspace, which allows us to really stay connected as a team. Whether we are working on a new product initiative together or creating a deck together, we have the ability to share and to comment. This promotes transparency across the organization and helps drive productivity.”
Google Workspace also helped drive a company-wide cultural shift. “We realized that we couldn’t take full advantage of all that the cloud has to offer unless we changed our culture,” explains Koehler. “At Equifax, we aspire to have a ‘first-draft’ agile culture, where any employee can feel comfortable sharing a first draft of a document and then collaborating with team members in real time to make it even better. Google Workspace has helped us achieve this vision and has been a huge part of the cultural transformation we’ve been promoting.”
The future with Google Cloud
With the move to the cloud, Equifax is positioned to continue its heavy focus on product innovation, data integrations, and use of machine learning and AI techniques to help ensure that businesses and consumers can make smarter financial decisions every day.
Koehler concludes, “I believe Google Cloud will be a critical part of the Equifax journey in the future, bringing constant innovation into our products and helping us think about new opportunities to engage our customers and consumers.”
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Equifax
As a global data, analytics, and technology company, Equifax plays an essential role in the global economy by helping financial institutions, companies, employees, and government agencies make critical decisions with greater confidence. Equifax’s unique blend of differentiated data, analytics, and cloud technology drives insights to power decisions to move people forward. Headquartered in Atlanta and supported by more than 11,000 employees worldwide, Equifax operates or has investments in 25 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. For more information, visit Equifax.com.
About EPAM Systems
EPAM Systems uses its software engineering expertise to deliver next-generation solutions that help its customers turn complex business challenges into real business outcomes.