Last week, the events team headed south and joined Equifax for their first ever customer conference in Atlanta. More than 250 of Equifax’s customers and partners from financial institutions and Fortune 500 companies, including SunTrust, Bank of America, Cox, and CreditKarma, attended Spark to learn about the latest trends and industry insights in consumer credit.

In the spirit of sparking inspiration and innovation, Equifax Chief Data and Analytics Officer Prasanna Dhore opened the conference by sharing his personal journey as an immigrant and how he built his credit from zero over the decades. His talk highlighted the information asymmetry that can exist between credit consumers and financial institutions.

Day 1 of Spark continued with the announcement of a new strategic partnership between Equifax and FICO.  In today’s information age, Equifax and their partners have more data, technology, and analytics than ever before. More accurate customer views allow for smarter decisions for financial institutions and lenders, and more importantly, better credit access for consumers and a stronger economy for everyone. To accompany this philosophy, the  new partnership serves help lenders better understand their consumers.

The rest of the content followed the key themes of data, analytics, and identity. Notable sessions covered the significance of data indicators such as student loan history, employment trends, generational differences; new analytics technologies such as explainable AI that are powering tools to better understand and predict consumer habits and behavior; and the role of identity to combat fraud and mitigate risk.

Artists from the Sketch Effect were onsite to help capture all the key session points and spark-worthy ideas. Other conference highlights included:

• Equifax and Moody’s Economic Outlook session: A deep dive into current consumer trends and indicators for 2020

• Equifax’s Innovation Studio Expo: Hosted at the Infinity Club of SunTrust Park, data and analytic leaders demoed some of their latest cutting-edge tools and solutions

• Erik Qualman’s energizing keynote: Voted the 2nd Most Likeable Author in the World behind J.K. Rowling, Erik offered a guide for leaders in the digital age  

After an eventful two days of thought-provoking content and demos, Spark left attendees feeling inspired and empowered to tackle the biggest challenges for our economy and consumer credit.

Interested in planning a customer conference like Spark? Let’s connect at events@credpr.com. See more of our event management here.