Experian plc

Hello everybody and welcome to our Q3 trading update call. I'm here as usual with Lloyd. He'll take you through the trading performance after my opening remarks. So we saw good momentum in Q3, particularly on an underlying basis. Q3 organic revenue growth of 6% was on 8% on an underlying basis, adjusting for data breach, which continues the strong trend that we had in Q2. Total group revenue growth was 8% at constant currency and 6% at actual rates. And our growth rates remain at high single digit despite the still subdued environment for unsecured credit activity. North America organic revenue growth of 6% was 9% on an ex-speech basis. Latin America came in as expected with a solid 8% performance. We have 9% growth in EMEA Asia Pacific, which is a very good outcome. UKI growth was 1%, and we saw particular strength in consumer. By segment, globally, B2B organic revenue growth was 6%, and consumer services, where we now reach over 195 million free members, delivered 5% growth, rising to 15% X data breach. Touching now on the regional Q3 highlights, we've seen steadily improving trends in North America, which had a strong underlying Q3. Organic revenue growth of six was nine percent, excluding data breach. B2B growth of eight percent is a good outcome. While credit activity is still subdued and fairly variable across different client categories, we saw a stable to slightly positive picture in CIBI. Lenders continue to monitor unemployment and delinquencies, and the pace of lending standard tightening has slowed, although there is still a degree of market caution given higher for longer rate expectations. Ascending clarity continued on very solid trajectories, while mortgage benefited from a short-lived volume pickup in October. Our neuro-ID acquisition has had a very good start, and we're seeing encouraging levels of fraud in new business pipeline generation. Other parts of the B2B portfolio perform well, especially automotive, and we expect health to be supported by the bucking surge from early in the year in the coming quarters. Consumer services had a very strong quarter. The 2% headline growth number masks a sequential step up to 14% growth underlying when data breach is excluded. This is a very encouraging performance across the board with continued growth in membership and a big step up in marketplace. Insurance is scaling well and the trajectory in credit marketplace improved as it returned to growth. Core partner solutions also performed well after a strong run of new business wins. We continue on our path to reinvent premium offers with enhanced subscription cancellation experience. We also had new client onboards into Experian Activate. We expanded and expanded our insurance offers. And these are just some of the examples of growth investments we're making to sustain our growth and to secure new opportunities. Trends in Latin America were similar to those we referenced in November. We delivered high single-digit organic revenue growth in line with our expectations at 8%. B2B growth is 4%, and consumer services, again, came in very strong at 22%. In B2B, we're benefiting from the balance in our portfolio, our comprehensive product suite, and growing contributions from our growth initiatives. Q3 saw further progress across B2B software and SME, which compensated for more cautious approaches to lending within the banking sector linked to the Brazilian fiscal picture. We had a great quarter in consumer services, reflecting the multiple avenues we have for growth, Q3 was another strong quarter for free membership acquisition, engagement trends, and our annual LIMPA Nome Fair was very successful, achieving record debt settlements. We now have a full pipeline of new feature introductions planned over the coming few quarters, which will add and build on these foundations. The UK and I delivered organic revenue growth of 1%. While B2B was down 1%, consumer services delivered a very encouraging performance and was up 10%. We're making good strategic progress in B2B with new Ascend signings and several clients testing the platform and new modules planned for next year. The UK economy, however, is facing into a range of challenges which are causing our clients to adapt to which weighed on activity levels. UK Consumer Services has made excellent progress, delivering organic revenue growth of 10%. New features have been well received by our membership base, leading to higher app downloads stronger engagement, and a good performance in subscription products. The growing adoption of Experian Activate that we talked about in November also had a marked effect, helping to elevate pre-credit approval rates on our marketplace in an environment where demand for credit is somewhat soft. EMEA Asia Pacific has been a consistent performer, and organic growth was again at the high single-digit level we aspire to, up 9%. Growth is broad-based across our markets, including in Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, India, Italy, and Turkey. And we're pleased with the progress that we're making with the integration of Illion. So with that, I'll now hand it over to Lloyd.

Thanks, Brian. Morning, everyone. As you've seen, we did a good growth for Q3 with organic revenue growth of 6%. And excluding the data breach business, we delivered strong online growth of 8% globally and 9% in North America, in line with the performance in Q2. So good growth in the U.S. Bureau and strong growth in North American consumer services outside data breach. Latin America delivered consistent growth with continued strength in consumer services. Acquisitions added 2% to growth. Exchange rates were 2% headwind following the depreciation of the Brazilian REI. meaning the total revenue at actual exchange rates grew by 6%. Organically, B2B revenue grew by 6%, whilst B2C grew 5%. And you'll remember back in November, we shared a view of global consumer services growth, excluding the data breach business. And this showed that the segment improved from 8% growth in Q1 to 11% in Q2. And in Q3, this strengthened further to 15%. with broad-based momentum across both membership and marketplace. Turning to the performance by region, beginning with North America, where we delivered strong organic revenue growth of 6%, with 8% in B2B and 2% in consumer services. Within B2B, the Bureau excluding mortgage profiles grew 6% in the quarter, consistent with the performance in Q2. Credit conditions have remained stable to slightly improving, as we saw in Q2. Clarity had another strong quarter, growing double digit, reflecting the strength of our offerings and market growth in the short-term lending environment. Mortgage profile revenue grew 71% on another quarter of modest volume growth, and the difference coming from the FICO price increase. And this takes total organic bureau growth to 11% in line with Q2. Elsewhere in data, Automotive had a good quarter, growing 8%, following good growth in credit volumes And targeting delivered a growth of 4%. Decisioning grew 4% organically. The health business grew 5%. And the pipeline in health continues to progress very well, and we expect a strong end to the year. And the remainder of decision grew 2%. In consumer services, where growth excluding data breach strengthened further to 14%, premium subscription delivered high single-digit growth. as the enhanced proposition and financial health marketing messaging helped acquire and retain more consumers. Marketplace grew well following the continued strength in our insurance proposition and a good quarter from personal loans, as well as an improved position in credit cards within the credit marketplace. Data breach returned to normal ongoing levels from the exceptional high of last year. And as a reminder, we expect this to fully normalize in Q2 FY26. Moving on to Latin America, which grew 8% organically, B2B grew 4%, and consumer services delivered 22% growth. In B2B, growth improved slightly compared to Q2. We saw continued growth in our software, platform offerings, and growth in new verticals. The macroeconomic climate continued to wear on credit activity, and trends were overall consistent with Q2. Consumer services had another strong quarter, growth of 22%. We saw growth across all products with very strong performance in our payments platform, which grew 27%. Limpinomi grew double-digit in Q3, which is the quarter we hold our annual Limpinomi credit fair. And turning to the UK&I, which grew 1% organically, B2B was 1% lower, with the Bureau in line with the prior year, as we continue to see subdued credit market and increasing macroeconomic uncertainty. Consumer Services delivered double-digit organic revenue growth of 10%, with strong growth in our marketplace business. And in EMEA Asia Pacific, we grew 9% with good progress across most markets and a strong software performance in Australia. And finally, our near-term expectations for the full year are unchanged from those that we discussed in November. And with that, I'll hand you back to Brian.

So thanks, Lloyd. And so in summary, we delivered another good quarter of growth in Q3. Underlying trends in our largest markets are positive, and strategically we are executing well. We're on track to deliver the guidance for the full year that we previously set out, namely organic revenue growth is between 6% to 8%, and margin expansion at the upper end of our 30 to 50 basis points range. So with that, I'll open up the line for questions. So back to you, operator.