Veda officially rebrands to Equifax
The rebrand comes after Equifax acquired the credit reporting company more than a year ago.
Australia's leading holder of credit information, Veda, will officially be known as Equifax from today. The rebrand is a long time coming, with the acquisition being announced in February 2016 and Equifax's CEO admitting the company first considered acquiring it six years ago.
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald early last year, Equifax's international chief John Hartman said Veda was "one of the few well-run credit bureaus to buy" in the Australasia and South-East Asian region, the only areas Equifax hadn't expanded yet. However, Hartman wanted to see if Veda's success would continue.
"There was some thinking that the plans and the trajectory – I don't want to say "were too good to be true" – but we were very curious to see whether they would be sustainable," he said.
Hartman led the deal, which saw Veda acquired for $2.5 billion, priced at $2.825 a share. He also named himself president, international, in January last year.
Veda CEO Nerida Caesar, who will continue to lead the company in Australia, said the rebrand will mean an expansion of Veda's product offerings.
“Equifax’s insights-guided technology and advanced data and analytics will enable us to build the "next generation" of credit information products for our customers in Australia, New Zealand and our other markets,” Caesar said.
However, it remains unclear how Veda's product offerings would be developed. Equifax's experience operating in a positive credit reporting environment may influence the delay of data sharing from Australian banks.
While positive credit reporting was introduced in May 2014, as of April 2016 only 24% of lenders have started sharing data in that vein. NAB has been sharing data in private mode and the other Big Four lenders – CommBank, ANZ and Westpac – have made moves towards data sharing, but none have as yet.
“Our objective is consistency and continuity for customers and the Veda team while bringing all the benefits of the combined companies to market as quickly as possible," Ceasar said.
"We will be as nimble and efficient as before, but more capable and more global in the future.”
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