Equifax: 2002 Annual Report

The essence of our emerging fraud, safety and security initiative is about protecting citizens, reducing threats and saving lives. In no other area does The Equifax Difference matter more.

The Opportunity To Help
The world has changed since September 11th and with this change comes a renewed focus on security, identity verification, and fraud detection and prevention. Indeed, one of the cornerstones of our government's war against terrorism is to pursue perpetrators by tracing and terminating their financial lifelines. The USA PATRIOT Act will further this effort by placing added responsibility on financial institutions and businesses that operate in high-risk arenas to know exactly who their customers are. For decades, Equifax has been the leader in developing a full suite of solutions that provide businesses and government agencies with tools and risk-relevant information solutions to help them manage their fraud and business risk as well as facilitate compliance.

KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER
Equifax has developed online and offline solutions to provide customers with a "one-stop shop" for addressing regulatory and business requirements to mitigate risks. We offer consultative services to assist customers in selecting from a number of identity verification and fraud detection products that meet their particular needs — products that they may not have access to on their own. Among these are a patented authentication solution, elDverifier®, which was specifically designed to minimize the risk inherent in remote, non-face-to-face transactions. Equifax has also developed its OFAC Alert™ product that automates and streamlines the often costly, time-consuming and cumbersome process of screening against the Office of Foreign Assets Control's lists of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons. Other efforts under way include assisting the British government and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration with screening activities.

Well before the events of September 11th, Equifax took an active role in discussions that resulted in the formation of the Regulatory DataCorp, Int'l. LLC (RDC), formed by selected major banks and brokerage firms, and the development of Global Regulatory Information Database (GRIDSM) — a comprehensive security information solution. Because of our data management experience, proprietary search/match technology, comprehensive information assets and expertise obtained through the strategic acquisition of the Compliance Data Center (CDC) in 2000, Equifax was selected to manage and consolidate thousands of global lists of high-risk individuals as well as develop delivery systems for this important tool in the fight against terrorism. GRID provides the largest single source of publicly available global risk information. With daily monitoring, financial institutions and other businesses can identify potential money laundering, fraud, corruption and organized crime schemes by screening individuals and entities against thousands of publicly available data sources. Indeed, screening is so critical that financial institutions will spend approximately $10 billion on these initiatives over the next three to five years.*

THE EQUIFAX DIFFERENCE
Our screening products, such as elDverifier and OFAC Alert, as well as the security solution of GRID, are excellent examples of the types of information products needed in the security and compliance area — comprehensive, easily integrated, affordable, timely and convenient. These product attributes help make safeguarding our society a practical and more effective reality.

Source: Anti-Money Laundering Report, Celent Communications, September 2002

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