TransUnion Launches Innovation Lab to Accelerate Lenders' Growth with Real-Time Data Access and Analytical Expertise

CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - March 06, 2017) - TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) announced today the launch of its Innovation Lab, a new offering to help lenders accelerate growth, power new models and identify expansion opportunities in real time. The Innovation Lab is housed in TransUnion's Chicago headquarters and gives participants access to TransUnion's proprietary data environment and analytics experts. TransUnion unveiled the Innovation Lab at LendIt USA 2017, a lending and FinTech conference.

"The Innovation Lab is the next phase in TransUnion's commitment to our customers. By delivering more data and greater access to top analytical talent, we empower our partners to make smarter decisions," said Steve Chaouki, executive vice president and head of TransUnion's financial services business unit. "TransUnion is uniquely positioned to help our customers test and validate their ideas, because we can combine their data with the full breadth of TransUnion's data, and leverage the best analytic talent of both organizations to solve business problems in real time. The Innovation Lab can significantly enhance our customers' speed to market."

Each Innovation Lab engagement is tailored to the participant's business needs. The Lab includes a two to three day immersion with TransUnion analysts and Prama? analytics, powered by TransUnion's massive data environment. Early adopters of the Innovation Lab have worked with TransUnion to build new models, size markets and expand into new asset classes. The Lab integrates with TransUnion's startup lender development program, further helping FinTechs compress the time from business concept to market launch.

"TransUnion's Innovation Lab delivered a completely custom and hands on experience," said Sasha Orloff, CEO and co-founder at LendUp. "Working with TransUnion's analytical talent, we were able to obtain high quality, reliable data very quickly and understand how we could apply it to our business. The Innovation Lab engagement helped us shorten our development cycle by identifying and applying the best of TransUnion's assets to better understand our target customers."

Among the first Innovation Lab participants are CreditShop (Austin, Texas), LendUp (San Francisco) and Payoff (Costa Mesa, Calif.).

"In the Innovation Lab, we were able to iterate rapidly and learn fast," said Warren Wilcox, chief marketing officer at CreditShop. "We also got a deeper understanding of TU's capabilities, including some new credit variables that we probably should be using. We also created and ran several new models right on the spot. I think the Innovation Lab is dynamite... and that many TU clients should consider doing this."

Working with TransUnion analysts, depersonalized consumer credit data and attributes during Innovation Lab engagements, lenders have been able to:

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

"Whether you are a FinTech startup or a well-established financial institution, there are operational risks from expanding into new credit tiers or launching new products. The traditional approach to market entry has been a tradeoff between 'paralysis by analysis' and speed to market," said Jason Laky, senior vice president and consumer lending business leader at TransUnion. "The Innovation Lab aims to reduce this risk by offering better access to more data in an environment that fosters rapid learning. This process is critically important, especially for startups who need to prove product viability early in their lifecycle. TransUnion understands these challenges and is delivering the Innovation Lab to help our customers accelerate their growth."

To learn more about the Innovation Lab and how TransUnion can help lenders accelerate growth by turning data into action, visit booth 655 at LendIt or visit transunion.com/FinTech.

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. http://www.transunion.com/business

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