NEW EQUIFAX SOLUTION HELPS UNITE INDIVIDUALS WITH THEIR LOST ASSETS

Innovative online tool gives Life & Pension providers powerful brand and revenue benefits

London, September 2012 - Leading wealth product and IFA intelligence specialist, Equifax’s Touchstone Financial Analytics, is tackling the challenge of orphan life and pension policies with an innovative new online tool. Equifax Positive Locate is a market leading solution targeted at Life & Pension providers, enabling them to trace and re-unite clients with their lost assets. Touchstone Financial Analytics believes the advantages in both enhanced brand reputation and the identification of new sales opportunities are significant.

It is estimated that at least 25-30% of life and pension policies are currently orphan accounts in the UK, equating to around 30 million accounts worth £15 billion in unclaimed assets*. Not only are these ‘lost’ clients not reaping the benefits of their life and pension schemes, but there are also lost sales opportunities for the providers as Neil Cunningham, Touchstone Financial Analytics Director & General Manager, explained.

“Market sentiment suggests the number of orphan accounts in the UK is likely to increase to 40 million by the RDR deadline. Customers who have at some point bought a financial product have greater propensity to buy another, making orphan clients a potentially highly valuable market.The challenge right now is how to tap into that market.

“The Equifax Positive Locate online tool accesses high quality financial activity data to carry out individual searches in the most efficient and convenient way. And this means providers can integrate the process of asset reunification into their usual business practices which could be a crucial factor in allowing them to trace individuals effectively.”

Equifax Positive Locate gives Life and Pension providers a number of key benefits including:

• The ability to save money on administration costs by only contacting the relevant parties
• Enhancing brand reputation through pro-active asset re-unification
• Revealing new sales opportunities by re-energising orphan customer accounts
• User-controlled batch service for larger volumes (up to 500,000 records)
• An unrivalled history of address movements which allows providers to trace more historical accounts
• A chance for companies to evidence their commitment and adherence to Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) compliance

In addition, Equifax’s Batch facility is available online, or the dedicated support team can perform batches on a client’s behalf.

“This latest development from Touchstone Financial Analytics demonstrates our understanding of the business issues that Life and Pension providers face”, continued Neil Cunningham. “We believe that the new service will empower providers to make effective changes in their business systems. And the vast data that we are able to provide will dramatically maximise the effectiveness of their tracing efforts.

“We have already received very positive feedback from early users of the solution, including pension provider, ReAssure. Speaking about the effectiveness of Equifax Positive Locate, Brian McPhail, Head of Customer Services at ReAssure, said: “We selected Equifax Positive Locate following a trial that put several different service providers to the test. Equifax returned the best results and the ease with which we could integrate Positive Locate with our processes was also crucial.”

To find out more, customers can contact Touchstone on 01236 722 000 or email touchstone@equifax.com. For more information about Equifax Positive Locate please visit http://images.uk.partner.equifax.com/Web/EquifaxLtd/%7B00dbd4ca-ab61-4173-b331-81c709e2885e%7D_Positive_Locate.pdf

Keep updated via Twitter (@My_Touchstone) and LinkedIn ( http://www.linkedin.com/company/www-mytouchstone-co-uk )

*Source: Navigant RDR update October 2011

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For further press information, please contact: Wendy Harrison, Jenny Thorneywork or Clare Watson at HSL on 020 8977 9132 / Fax: 020 8977 5200 or Email: equifaxbtobteam@harrisonsadler.com

About Equifax

Equifax is a global leader in consumer, commercial and workforce information solutions, providing businesses of all sizes and consumers with information they can trust. We organize and assimilate data on more than 500 million consumers and 81 million businesses worldwide, and use advanced analytics and proprietary technology to create and deliver customized insights that enrich both the performance of businesses and the lives of consumers.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Equifax operates or has investments in 17 countries and is a member of Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500® Index. Its common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol EFX. For more information, please visit www.equifax.com.

Touchstone Financial Analytics and IXI

Touchstone is the UK’s leading provider of strategic IFA intelligence to financial product providers, delivering powerful benefits to its users. It operates a shared investment product data exchange with information provided by over 90 of the UK’s leading financial services companies. It also operates the MyTouchstone database which is powered by the collective sales data of 77 major product providers, fund managers and platforms and inputs from thousands of IFAs to help IFAs understand how they perform compared to the other IFAs in their post area and across the UK.

Equifax Inc acquired US wealth data specialist, IXI, at the end of 2009. The IXI Corporation has been directly-measuring consumer wealth in the U.S. for the past 15 years.

The unique combination of Touchstone Financial Analytics and IXI is set to bring an unparalleled understanding of consumer wealth and purchase behaviour to the UK for the first time.