ST. LOUIS, Sept. 23, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Equifax Inc.(NYSE: EFX ), a global information solutions company, announced today that The Work Number®, the largest central source of consolidated income and employment information in the U.S., now includes data from nearly 75 percent of the Fortune 500. The Work Number® is a proprietary database owned by Equifax Workforce Solutions.
Now 370 of the nation's largest public companies (by revenue) are contributing active and historical employment records to The Work Number®. Those companies employ more than 16 million workers in the United States – nearly 90 percent of all U.S. workers employed by the Fortune 500.
"America's leading companies are increasingly joining forces with Workforce Solutions, which is further testimony of The Work Number®'s benefits to employers and consumers alike," said Dann Adams, President of Workforce Solutions, Equifax. "With the consumer's consent, The Work Number® is able to provide virtually instant income and employment verification, meaning people can be hired more quickly, lenders can approve home, auto and consumer loans even faster, and ultimately, consumers can get into their dream house or car without additional stress or delay."
The Work Number® today holds 247 million employee records. Of that, 58.8 million are active employee records and another 187 million are historical records. Equifax takes great strides to insure that the consumer's data is accurate, protected with stringent physical and electronic security standards, and available almost instantly but only to Equifax-credentialed companies.
The overall growth in employers contributing information to The Work Number® has been exponential. Adams noted that it took more than a decade to sign up the first 1,500 contributors, another seven years to collect an additional 1,500 contributors, yet the company has added that same number of contributors in 2014 alone. Today, a total of 4,500 employers contribute information to the database.
"In today's environment, it remains difficult to get access to credit, particularly for millions of lower-scoring consumers who had their credit scores negatively impacted and are still dealing with the last severe recession," Adams said. "But The Work Number® and verification of employment and income has given lenders new insights so that they can lend with greater confidence and at lower pricing for consumers versus traditional credit score-driven methodologies."
About Equifax
Equifax is a global leader in consumer, commercial and workforce information solutions that provide businesses of all sizes and consumers with insight and information they can trust. Equifax organizes and assimilates data on more than 600 million consumers and 81 million businesses worldwide. The company's significant investments in differentiated data, its expertise in advanced analytics to explore and develop new multi-source data solutions, and its leading-edge proprietary technology enable it to create and deliver unparalleled customized insights that enrich both the performance of businesses and the lives of consumers.
Headquartered in Atlanta, Equifax operates or has investments in 19 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. In 2013, Equifax was named a Bloomberg BusinessWeek Top 50 company, was #3 in Fortune's Most Admired list in its category, and was named to InfoWeek 500 as well as the FinTech 100. For more information, please visit www.equifax.com .
Tim Klein (404) 885-8555 Mark Braykovich (404) 343-0886
