US-based Equifax, a consumer credit reporting company, is planning to launch its income and employment verification product to India.
Talking to BusinessLine on the sidelines of the Nasscom India Leadership Forum, David Webb, Chief Information Officer, Equifax, said the company is keen to add to its portfolio of solutions that it offers to the Indian market. Equifax is offering credit reports to banks and financial institutions data. This data can be used to make informed decisions.
India a massive marketEquifax believes that India, with its billion-plus population – which includes a large chunk of workers – presents a big opportunity. “In India a lot of data is captured manually and we are looking to automate it,” said Webb. Currently Experian, another American company, is providing credit score data and background verification. Further, National Skills Registry, an initiative by Nasscom, contains a database of registered and verified people in the IT industry. This database is managed by National Securities Depository Limited.
Webb added that Equifax uses specific matching algorithms and advanced search techniques that can help a company achieve better accuracy, and speed up decision-making process.
Equifax Credit Information Services Private Limited (ECIS), a credit bureau and consumer credit, has received a license from the RBI. Industry sources say it may need to get another license for offering its income and employment verification product, as there is a large number of public sector companies.
In India, according to the United Nations report, the size of the working-age population increased by 300 million between 1991 and 2013, while the number of employed people increased by only 140 million.
Corporates are increasingly relying on companies to provide background checks of prospective employees to get an idea of criminal and financial records. Most of these checks are focused on previous employment of a person and educational qualifications, areas in which companies point out there is a lot of fraud.
Time-saving“Often, companies take more than six months to make their decision and Equifax can do this in a month or so,” said Manu Sehgal, Business Development Leader, Equifax. For doing this, the company is looking at partnerships with educational institutions so that they can get data pertinent to the educational qualifications of a student.
IT companies have been asking their employees to refer people they know to overcome issues related to overstating of educational qualifications and work experiences.
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