Experian

History

The company has its origins in Credit Data Corporation, a business which was acquired by TRW Inc. in 1968, and subsequently renamed TRW Information Services.

In November 1996, TRW sold the unit, as Experian, to Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners. Just one month later, the two firms sold Experian to The Great Universal Stores Limited in Manchester, England, a retail conglomerate with millions of customers paying for goods on credit (later renamed GUS). GUS merged its own credit-information business, CCN, which at the time was the largest credit-service company in the UK, into Experian.

In October 2006, Experian was demerged from GUS and listed on the London Stock Exchange.

In August 2005, Experian accepted a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over charges that Experian had violated a previous settlement with the FTC. The FTC alleged that ads for the "free credit report" did not adequately disclose that Experian customers would automatically be enrolled in Experian's $79.95 credit-monitoring program.

Experian announced, in January 2008, that it would cut more than 200 jobs at its Nottingham office, and then shut down its Canadian operations on 14 April 2009.

In October 2013, the company acquired 41st Parameter and AdTruth.

In March 2017, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined Experian $3 million for providing invalid credit scores to consumers. In October of that year, Experian acquired Clarity Services, a credit bureau specialising in alternative consumer data.

In May 2024, Experian acquired a strategic minority in Reward, a UK-based customer engagement and commerce media technology company. Two years later, in February 2026, Reward was acquired by Rezolve AI, a NASDAQ-listed global commerce and AI company. Then, in October 2024, Experian agreed to acquire Brazilian digital fraud prevention provider ClearSale for $350 million.

In the United States, like the other major credit reporting bureaus, Experian is chiefly regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, signed into law in 2003, amended the FCRA to require the credit reporting companies to provide consumers with one free copy of their credit report per 12-month period. Like its main competitors, TransUnion and Equifax, Experian markets credit reports directly to consumers. Experian heavily markets its for-profit credit reporting service, FreeCreditReport.com, and all three agencies have been criticised and even sued for selling credit reports that can be obtained at no cost.

Its market segmentation tool, Mosaic, is used by political parties to identify groups of voters. In the British version there are 15 main groups, broken down into 89 hyperspecific categories, from "corporate chieftains" to "golden empty-nesters" which can be taken down to the level of individual postcodes. It was first used by the Labour Party, but then taken up by the Conservatives in the 2015 General Election campaign.

Notable Legal Cases

Learmond v. Experian Info. Sols. Inc. et al.,

In March 2026, Experian was sued in the Third Judicial District Court of Lancaster County, Nebraska by Tyreese Learmond. He alleged that they improperly charged him $24.99 twice after he cancelled his ExperianCreditWorks membership subscription. The complaint stated nine counts including Negligence, Breach of Contract and Trespass to Chattel. On April 30, 2026, Experian removed the case to the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska based on Counts VIII and IX, "Violation of the EFTA" by Experian and Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC. Experian and Learmond settled out of court before trial, formally releasing them from the case while Fidelity remained in the case hoping to compel arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act.