Veda ready to capitalise on a changing regulatory landscape

Veda Group has more than 20 credit providers working with it on the development of comprehensive credit reporting platforms - either loading comprehensive data or in discussions to do so.

Veda chief executive Nerida Caesar said 4.5 million customer accounts had comprehensive data in them, representing about 15 per cent of accounts.

Caesar said she expected that proportion to be up to 30 per cent by the end of the year.

She said credit providers loading comprehensive data were still at the "test and learn" stage and would not make their data public until they were confident it was stable and reliable.

Comprehensive data could be included in credit reports sometime next year.

Caesar said there was some interesting market intelligence coming out of New Zealand where comprehensive credit reporting was introduced a couple of years ahead of Australia and where 50 per cent of Veda's consumer accounts have comprehensive data.

In New Zealand 38 per cent of credit applicants have missed a payment and 16 per cent failed to disclose outstanding debt in a credit application.

Veda is expecting that comprehensive credit reporting will be one of the "external drivers" of its business over the next few years.

There are some others: changes to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing rules, taking effect next year, require reporting entities to delve deeper and identify the beneficial owners of accounts; the Personal Property Securities Act has been reviewed and the Government is expected to make some changes to the system; and the Financial Advisers Register has been up and running since March.

Veda provides services in all these areas.

Veda made a net profit of A$78.4 million for the year to June - an increase of 13.8 per cent over the pro forma result in 2013/14.

Revenue was up 12.2 per cent to $338.8 million.

Among the company's four divisions, B2C was the standout with revenue growth of 37.8 per cent to $56.1 million. B2C includes VedaScore, Secure Sentinel, carhistory.com.au, the National Tenancy Database and the marketing service Inivio.

Consumer risk and identity increased revenue by ten per cent to $110 million. It includes the consumer credit bureau, fraud detection and identity validation services and employment verification.

Commercial risk and information services, which includes the commercial credit bureau, the PPSR register, land titles searches and business data services, increased revenue by 6.9 per cent to $134.4 million.

The international division, which is predominantly New Zealand but also includes licensing arrangements and equity interests in Asia and the Middle East, increased revenue by 7.6 per cent to $38.3 million.

The company was busy with acquisitions. It bought Datalicious, a marketing services company; Kingsway, a credit analytics business; and The Prospect Shop, a swap network for charities. It also invested in GetCreditScore.com, taking a majority interest.