Experian Launches Monthly Business Benchmark Report to Monitor Business Recovery

Costa Mesa, Calif. — Experian®, the leading global information services company, today announced its Business Benchmark Report, a new monthly look at how businesses are faring in the United States. Designed to monitor the progress of business recovery, the report looks at four key indicators of business health, including commercial risk score, days beyond payment terms, percent of dollars delinquent and percent of dollars severely delinquent.

These indicators are then broken out by size of business, industry group and region.

Experian’s Business Benchmark Report also tracks the percent change of these metrics over the last six months to provide a broader view of business performance in each area.

Key findings from this month’s Business Benchmark Report include:

Size of business:

• Businesses with more than 20 employees are decreasing the percent of delinquent dollars outstanding, whereas businesses with one to 19 employees are seeing a rise in delinquencies.
• Non-employer firms* have also seen a decrease in the percent of delinquent dollars outstanding — with a more than 10 percent improvement over the last six months. 
• Businesses with more than 250 employees have a lower rate of severe delinquency when compared with all businesses. Only 2 percent of their dollars outstanding are considered severely delinquent (91 or more days), as opposed to the national average of 5 percent.

*Non-employer firms are businesses that have no paid employees.

Industry group:

• In general, commercial risk scores** continue to decline across almost every industry group, indicating a higher average risk of delinquency over the next 12 months. Businesses in the Utilities group, however, have an average commercial credit score of 70.64 — well above (16.4 percent) the national average of 60.68. Businesses in the Health and Education Services industry groups are also doing better than the national average, coming in at 65.29 and 65.03 respectively.
• Businesses in the Hospitality industry group show the lowest average credit scores at 56.12, which is 8.1 percent below the national average. 
• With the holidays approaching, it is noteworthy that retail is among the industry groups with the lowest commercial credit scores. With an average of 56.66, the retail industry’s score is 6.6 percent below the national average.

**Commercial risk scores are based on a scale of 1 to 100, with a score of one indicating high risk and 100 indicating low risk.

Region:

• Businesses in the Southwest, South Central and Mountain regions are showing signs of improvement, with a decline in the average percent of delinquent dollars in the last six months.
• In the Northeast and New England, businesses show the largest increase in the percent of delinquent dollars over the last six months. 
• For the month of October, businesses in the Midwest show the greatest negative variance in the percent of delinquent dollars, coming in at 15.8 percent above the national average, followed by the Northeast at 13.9 percent above the national average.

To see a visual representation of this data and other information in an interactive map of the United States, go to http://www.BusinessCreditFacts.com/map.

About Experian’s Business Information Services
In the business-to-business marketplace, Experian’s Business Information Services partners with organizations to establish and strengthen customer relationships, enabling them to mitigate risk and improve profitability. The company’s business database provides comprehensive, third-party-verified information on U.S. companies of all sizes, with the industry’s most extensive data on the broad spectrum of small and midsize businesses. By leveraging state-of-the-art technology and superior data compilation techniques, Experian is able to provide market-leading tools that assist clients in processing new applications, managing customer relationships and collecting on delinquent accounts. For more information about Experian’s advanced business-to-business products and services, visit http://www.experian.com/b2b or call 1 800 520 1221.

About Experian
Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients in more than 65 countries. The company helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score and protect against identity theft.

Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended March 31, 2009, was $3.9 billion. Experian employs approximately 15,000 people in 40 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; Costa Mesa, California; and São Paulo, Brazil.

For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com.