Lenders Around the World Seek Help From Data Scientists to Improve Speed and Efficacy of Analytics

CHICAGO, March 05, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) marked the second anniversary of its Innovation Lab today by opening registration for future engagements, and by announcing its deployment on a global basis to meet ongoing demand. The Innovation Lab allows lenders to collaborate with TransUnion to develop models and other analytical solutions that address key customer needs. This process, which previously could take months, can now be accomplished in just a few days.

The Innovation Lab is currently available in the United States and Brazil, and it will be launching next in Canada and India. Financial institutions interested in participating in the lab can apply for late 2019 and 2020 sessions by scrolling down to the bottom of the Innovation Lab website.

Customers of the Innovation Lab benefit from the vast amount of available data, the speed at which models are built, and the collaboration with TransUnion’s analytic teams. The lab has improved millions of decisions, driving better access to affordable credit for consumers and helping companies better match products to prospects.

“When you have an idea you want to explore, the TransUnion Innovation Lab is the perfect solution,” said Warren Wilcox, chief marketing executive of CreditShop LLC. “During a multi-day session, we worked closely with TU’s analytic experts to dig into the data, and build and iterate models that answered questions about market sizing, pricing and segmentation for a potential new product concept. We also gained a better understanding of new variables available to us that may become powerful additions to our databases and analyses. I would recommend an Innovation Lab engagement for any organization that wants to explore the market, and move quickly.”

The Innovation Lab leverages many of TransUnion’s 200+ data scientists worldwide to ensure participants are improving existing consumer decision-points and exploring new business questions and sources of insight. With access to certain trended credit and alternative data, and a state of the art machine learning platform and toolkit, participants have developed production-ready risk management or marketing models in as little as three days. One customer had a model in production seven days after the lab – a process that traditionally could have taken six months.

The Innovation Lab is built on the same technology and platform that powers the Prama^SM analytics environment. Prama provides self-service capabilities that allow customers to explore market developments or trends in their performance versus their peers. It also allows them to build and test new models or strategies and deploy them into production in days.

“We created the Innovation Lab to fulfill our customers’ desire to execute their analytics and modeling projects much faster, while taking advantage of the full capabilities of trended and alternative credit data available only through TransUnion,” said Steve Chaouki, executive vice president and head of TransUnion’s financial services business unit. “The Innovation Lab pairs customers with TransUnion’s data scientists in an immersive environment so that, in just a few days, a lender can go from concept to a fully-defined risk or marketing model.”

Examples of how the Innovation Lab has helped participants during the last two years, include:

• Expanded the universe of several participants by identifying attributes that were highly predictive of risk and response for their target population
  
  
• Created a full-service prescreen solution including the design, development and documentation of response models for various participants
  
  
• Prioritized growth initiatives using advanced machine learning to identify the most relevant data features for geographic expansion
  
  
• Iterated new product design characteristics to build out new solutions and models
  
  
• Executed targeted market analysis through flexible customization and real-time coding and visualization tools

To learn more about the Innovation Lab, how TransUnion can help lenders accelerate growth by turning data into action and to apply for a session, please visit the Innovation Lab website.

About TransUnion (NYSE: TRU)
Information is a powerful thing. At TransUnion, we realize that. We are dedicated to finding innovative ways information can be used to help individuals make better and smarter decisions. We help uncover unique stories, trends and insights behind each data point, using historical information as well as alternative data sources. This allows a variety of markets and businesses to better manage risk and consumers to better manage their credit, personal information and identity. Today, TransUnion has a global presence in more than 30 countries and a leading presence in several international markets across North America, Africa, Latin America and Asia. Through the power of information, TransUnion is working to build stronger economies and families and safer communities worldwide.

We call this Information for Good^SM.

https://www.transunion.com/business