EQUIFAX PORTFOLIO:
Keeping A Watchful Eye Over Customers' Financial Standing
Equifax, a leading information solutions provider, is introducing Portfolio Monitoring Service, a new web based service designed to help businesses monitor changes which may affect their commercial customers' financial standing. Figures from the Lord Chancellor's Department published in the third quarter of 2002 report a 45% increase in company winding up petitions on 2001, a 16% increase in creditor's petitions and a 5% increase in debtor's petitions. Recent research by Equifax has highlighted that its clients were concerned about the time and costs of successfully monitoring customers' accounts.
The Equifax Portfolio Monitoring Service addresses both these key business concerns, by providing a cost effective and easy-to-use method for businesses to protect themselves from the risk of bad debt. An automated system, the Portfolio Monitoring Service can be tailored to the individual needs of the business, monitoring only those areas of the financial information that are important to them. In addition, by providing a snapshot of the information required, the need for time spent analysing detailed commercial reports is removed.
Businesses can select specific events such as credit limit changes and changes in address or principals. All the information is presented online, clearly and concisely, with the option of a detailed report if necessary.
Ian McKinnon, Director of Information Services at Equifax comments, "Portfolio Monitoring Service users will be able to create a profile of the sorts of changes to a business about which they want to be notified. A Portfolio alert will then be triggered as new information comes into Equifax - for example new accounts being filed, a credit limit change, change of principals or address, CCJ information (including satisfaction dates) and, crucially, insolvency/winding up orders (and dismissals). These changes can be viewed on a daily basis and customers can be added and removed from a company's portfolio at any time."
Equifax's Portfolio Monitoring Service is being offered as a two-level service:
Portfolio Gold will provide event monitoring on a company's customer list, allowing them to see detailed information about each change, without having to order a separate alert or report. This information will be loaded on a daily basis. Portfolio Silver will provide the same monitoring options but without the level of detail returned in Portfolio Gold. However, clients will have the option of viewing the alert details for an extra charge but without the need to order a separate report.
New customer details can be added to the Portfolio Monitoring Service list at any time and the monitoring parameters can also be changed to meet a company's specific requirements.
"Equifax's Portfolio Monitoring Service allows businesses to keep an eye on the events which may affect the credit worthiness of their customers and which may impact on their trading relationship with them," continues McKinnon. "Equifax's Portfolio Monitoring Service will, therefore, be particularly appealing to companies regularly granting small to medium sums of credit to a reasonable number of businesses. For example, builders merchants and others in the construction industry, IT suppliers, plant and machinery hire companies and other business-to-business services."
"Throughout development of our Portfolio Monitoring Service we have aimed to provide a high level of flexibility so that businesses can tailor the service to suit their specific needs, " McKinnon concluded.
