• The company is relatively immune from “reputation risk.” Linde points out that Equifax’s customers are not the consumers whose data was stolen, but the lending institutions that need Equifax’s data to process loans and credit card applications — institutions that care relatively little about Equifax’s reputation.
• The regulatory changes that are being suggested in the wake of the data breach “do not appear to impact Equifax’s long-term growth potential.” Those changes are largely focused on tighter security and more timely public notification in the case of a breach. They pose few long-term challenges to Equifax’s core business of collecting consumer data and aggregating it for lending institutions — a business that has been growing at a double-digit rate for years.
• “They [Equifax] offer a service that is necessary. This is not a discretionary product that the world could do without.” Furthermore, Linde adds, Equifax is one of the three largest companies globally that provide this service, and banks and credit card companies do not want this number to shrink.
Submitted October 13, 2017 at 09:43AM by ferapy http://ift.tt/2z5DVGr
