Experian plc (EXPN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everybody, and welcome to our first half presentation. I'm joined as usual by Lloyd, who will run you through the financials after my initial overview. Also on the call today is Craig Boundy, our Chief Operating Officer; and Craig will join us for the Q&A segment of the call. So let's kick off with the financial highlights from H1. We started the year well with good revenue -- good growth in revenue and benchmark earnings per share. Q2 organic growth was 5%, which took us to 5% for the half and this compared to the 4% to 5% range we expected for Q2. Total revenue growth at constant exchange rates was also 5%. We continue to grow well despite the market backdrop This is due to the strength of our competitive position, the diversity of our portfolio, growth contributions from new products, new verticals, new business wins and favorite client and sector exposures. All regions delivered positively with B2B growth at 4% and Consumer Services growth of 6%. North America has been resilient. Latin America again performed very well, up double digits in the half. The U.K. delivered growth overall, but had a good performance in B2B Bureau, and we're pleased with the EMEA and Asia Pacific performance, which is on a much improved trajectory. EBIT progression in the half was 6%, both at constant and actual FX and constant currency margin was up 20 basis points. When FX is factored in, it was stable. The external environment has developed much as we anticipated at the start of the year. Our full year guidance was set with the current market context in mind. We expect the second half of the year to look much like the first and to land the year in line with our previous expectations. If we turn to the first half highlights. In the U.S., credit conditions are tight, but we haven't seen any material change. Some parts of the market are doing better than others. Tier 1 lenders remain very resilient. We have a strong presence in this segment and our revenues in the segments grew overall during the half. Other clients, fintech, for example, have seen tougher conditions, although this is a broad category. And even within that, we see a wide divergence in activity. The balance of our exposure with excellent clients and product diversity, combined with products that continue to see strong growth has meant that our performance has been stable, notwithstanding overall tightening credit conditions and softness in origination volumes. Ascend continues to drive growth across our product portfolio. We've expanded our position in employer services and verifications. And we've seen growth due to the shift to digital in areas like Auto, Targeting and Health. Consumer Services also delivered growth on the back of strong membership and Partner Solutions performance, which offset marketplace. U.K. credit trends have been pressured and overall credit issuance is down. Despite this, our U.K. B2B business has performed very well, and in particular, our credit business, where we continue our strong run of client wins. In Brazil, we saw strong growth against a fairly modest economic backdrop. New client wins, strong growth in positive data scores and attributes, expansion of our position in analytics and strong growth in PowerCurve all contributed to growth, and we also delivered a very strong performance in Consumer Services. And we've made a lot of progress in EMEA/Asia Pacific with both revenue and margin trajectory showing significant improvement. We continue to make important strategic improvements. We've added to our data assets in most jurisdictions, and this has made a material difference in markets like the U.K., for example. We continue to make good progress across decisioning and analytics. PowerCurve has been a strong contributor this half, and the Ascend platform now has over 500 clients globally, and we're close to $0.5 billion of total contract value. We'll build on this with the continued expansion of our product suite and this year, we've introduced Ascend fraud and Ascend model builder. Work continues to integrate all of our major product platforms, and this will lead to expanded opportunities with clients looking to streamline operations, save costs and improve decision-making. Verifications in the U.S. added to its record count, and we have many new employer services client wins, and we've also started to include consumer permission data sets. We continue to make great progress in Consumer Services. And while growth in the half was driven by subscriptions in North America in particular, we have taken additional important steps to evolve our business and leverage synergies between our B2B and B2C businesses. In this half, we introduced Experian Smart Money, a unique new checking account. Experian activate, you've heard us talk about before, it's linked directly to the Ascend platform. It exposes deeper analytics so that lenders can perform better on our credit marketplace and target audiences more effectively and its adoption is one of the reasons that Marketplace has outperformed relatively in this credit environment. Insurance has also made very good progress, and we're growing confidence that a digital aggregator model will emerge in the U.S. We continue to invest towards the achievement of our strategic goals, and it stands us very well in times like these. It all builds towards the strategic vision we've outlined before. On the B2B side, we aim to bring products to market that are unmatched in our industry, built on superior data and combining the breadth of our capabilities with advanced technology to solve more customer needs, and this has extended our commercial position and expanded our revenue opportunities. We are investing to integrate all of our major product platforms into 1 integrated solution. and this will enhance our opportunities in credit, fraud and identity by taking a more holistic integrated view of operational processes underpinning client decisions. The Ascend Ops shown at the center of this graphic, is a new capability, and it's a critical component of this. It connects the analytical environment and the production environment. The successful execution of this strategy will expand our relationships and embed our capabilities further so that clients are able to consume multiple services easier, faster and at lower cost. Data flows through all of our platforms so that as demand grows, so too does the demand for data. It also means that clients can consolidate the number of vendors that they have to cover the entire model life cycles. And while it's early days for Ascend Ops, we've seen good traction so far. In Consumer Services, 178 million free members means we now have distribution platforms at scale. We started to widen the range of services we offer and address substantial new adjacent markets like insurance in the U.S. and payments in Brazil. We also expect to aggregate and scale new data sets through a value exchange, which helps our members to save time and money. And there are many ways we can help both our B2B clients and consumers, and this interplay is a central feature of our strategy. So let's now turn to the H1 regional performance, starting with North America, where organic revenue growth was 4%. Core CI/BI grew by 2% when mortgages excluded. This is a resilient performance, and we continue to navigate the environment well. Credit tightening has happened as we expected to, but performance across market segments is not uniform. Ascend performed well and is a great example of how we have built products that continue to grow, notwithstanding the underlying credit market conditions. For example, in H1, we implemented Ascend marketing with the major clients. The revenues for this has started to flow and should build in a H2. It's been a great win for us, enabled by the combination of capabilities across multiple business units, particularly our credit business units and our targeting business units. Areas like Clarity, another example, it also delivered well in the half. Customers in this segment continue to land and have started to adopt machine learning and AI-based solutions, and we've introduced analytics and model building products to support them. Added to this is the progress we've made in income and employment verifications, where we are on track to deliver U.S. revenues in the region of over $190 million this financial year. The expanded record count has led to client wins for Experian Verify. Taken together, these investments across our CI/BI and decisioning activities have mitigated the effects of current credit conditions. Targeting, auto and health, all delivered strong rates of growth. In auto, new vehicle sales have continued to rise, consumers continue to spend and there is inventory oversupply. Clients have returned to active marketing as they look for buyers as inventory is building and our growth in both the marketing and credit product lines. Newer products like Experian Marketing Engine have seen good growth as a result. At the heart of our targeting business is digital identity, which is central to audience targeting and campaign measurement in Connected TV. We've made very good progress in digital, which has offset ongoing weakness in retail channels, some of which is linked to the current environment. Health has continued to perform well. Our growth was broad-based across the portfolio, reflecting mostly new business wins and volume expansion across patient access, collections and digital front door. We continue to see strong industry trends around reducing costs, enhancing revenue capture and improving patient experiences. And this is what continues to drive growth in our product [ set ] and we're excited about the potential to continue to scale our investments in these areas. Consumer Services in North America delivered organic revenue growth of 4%, and our free member base is now at 67 million. We've added new value into premium through features like BillFixer, which helps people to save money on their household bills and is built into the premium offer. Adding value in this way has helped sustain strong growth in premium revenues, and we have a healthy new product road map to sustain this. Partner Solutions also had a very good first half. We've had good client wins. And for example, a large Tier 1 financial institution will soon move their embedded program over to Experian. Credit marketplace was soft, but we've outperformed relatively, and more lenders have adopted Experian Activate because it helps consumers to improve their approval lots for credit, drives up conversion rates and improves our share of available credit supply. We also reached a key milestone for our insurance marketplace where we recently launched the first direct carrier to our agency model. This will substantially increase insurance offer availability and enhance the consumer experience. And we're very excited to have launched Experian Smart Money. It's a new Experian digital checking account, which helps people to build credit without going into debt, and so we'll bring new consumers into the financial system. It will also help to drive engagement and bring new consumer permission data assets to Experian. And while it's still early days, we're very encouraged with the initial adoption rate. So to summarize, we've progressed a lot in consumer services, and we're very excited about the opportunities ahead of us. Moving to Latin America, which is going to have another very strong year, both in Brazil and Spanish Latin America. H1 organic revenue growth was 11%, and margins again moved forward helped by margin expansion in Consumer Services. Brazil has significant structural growth potential and the shape of our business is clearly evolving. On the B2B side, growth has come from several areas. Examples include new positive data scores and attributes, growth in software platforms and analytics and new capabilities, for example, in our agri finance vertical. Software platforms, particularly PowerCurve was really strong in this half, in part because we increasingly sell these as part of an integrated data fraud and credit decision product. and we've seen great success to integrated solutions on the back of our expansion of our fraud capabilities in recent years. The expanded breadth of our capabilities has opened up new spend pools with existing clients and expanded our addressable market. New-to-market products like Ascend and others will enhance this position further. Just as exciting as the development of Consumer Services, which delivered growth of 32% in the half, helped by a strong contribution from Limpa Nome. We built our consumer platform primarily organically, but lately, we've added inorganic investments, and we are already 1 of the biggest platforms for consumer financial needs in Brazil. E-Wallet brings together payment capabilities where our 84 million members can consolidate their monthly bills and pay them in 1 go, which drives greater engagement, and we have substantial room for further growth. Also worth noting is the early traction we have in consumer permission data. Over 1 million consumers have contributed data to Serasa to improve their scores and we have significant potential to scale this further. We used this slide recently a presentation that we gave at a Barclays conference and it bears repeating here because it summarizes our position well. and it encapsulates how we have extended our market lead and the excellent progress we've made. So for example, we have a very broad product portfolio with high client recognition. We've successfully shifted the strategic position of the business from being primarily a supplier of data to [ adjust ] partner supplying critical solutions across the customer life cycle. We're recognized as 1 of the most innovative companies in Brazil and 1 of the best companies to work for. Our consumer app reaches an audience comparable to or ahead of leading consumer financial brands, and we are top-of-mind brands significantly ahead of our industry peers. We've built on these strong foundations strategically through the addition of world-class B2B products and massive consumer audience that we've established. The U.K. delivered organic revenue growth of 1%. The picture here, particularly in B2B, is worth highlighting, as there is a big disconnect in the correlation between our revenue performance and credit volume trends in the market, particularly in our CI business line. This is primarily driven by new business wins across financial services, public sector and telco. It's a very good example of our strategy working. We also have a strong program of new product releases and these combined with the investments we've made to add to our data superiority provide us with the confidence that we can continue to outperform the market. Several leading U.K. banks are now in proof of concept with income verification, and we've seen good growth in areas like financial crime. These are either completely new or relatively new focus areas for us, so we expect these to add to our growth opportunities. In Consumer Services, credit supply is still constrained, which did affect our performance. Premium subscriptions have, however, started to stabilize, helped by the new credit lock feature. We will introduce a series of new features in coming months to enhance the consumer experience and add more personalized features, and we fully expect this part of the business to accrete to our growth in the future. Progress in EMEA/Asia Pacific has been very good with some very good performance across key geographies. Australia is one to call out has sustained strong performances over several years. Italy, India also delivered strong performance, but we really saw good results across the whole region. We have many new initiatives in the region, which have helped our new product contributions have started to increase as a proportion of revenues. Examples include new scores and attributes, improvements to our PowerCurve suite, which helps us deliver a very good performance in decisioning in this half. And we also intend to expand Ascend products in key markets in coming months, which will add to the opportunities that we have here. So it's been very good progress in EMEA/Asia Pacific. We have more to do to sustain this, but we're very encouraged by the early signs. And with that, I'm going to hand over to Lloyd for the financials.

Thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone. As you've seen from Brian, we achieved strong strategic progress in the first half, delivering financial results in line with our expectations. Organic revenue growth in Q2 was good and consistent with Q1 at 5%, taking us to 5% organic and total revenue growth for the half, with FX, a 1% tailwind, growth in actual rates were 6%. We delivered good benchmark EBIT growth of 6% at both constant and actual rates. EBIT margins were up 20 basis points at constant FX rates and in line with the prior year at actual rates. EBIT growth translated to EPS growth of 8% at both constant and actual rates. Thanks to strong discipline in managing our interest rate fixing program and some tax phasing. Operating cash flow conversion was 70% -- 77% whilst return on capital employed increased strongly to 16.8%, up from 15.8% for the same period last year. We ended the half in a strong financial position with net debt-to-EBITDA leverage at 1.8x, and we announced a first interim dividend of $0.18 per share, up 6% on the prior year. So turning now to the regional growth for the quarter. North America sustained 4% organic revenue growth in the second quarter, taking growth to 4% for the half. Within the bureau, excluding mortgage, growth was 2%, in line with Q1. Underlying credit trends were consistent with the first quarter overall and remain tight continuing the trends we've seen for the last year. The diversity of our client mix supported growth as broad-based relationships from our larger banking clients, offset pockets of weakness in more subprime focused lenders. Our low-income lending proposition Clarity Services continued to grow well. in a period of tighter mainstream lending supply and Verifications and Employer Services had another great quarter of progress with new client wins and has records hit $52 million. With another great year of progress underway, we expect our Verification and Employer Services business to deliver revenue this year of over $190 million, which is a growth of around 20% for the year as a whole. Our market-leading Ascend Suite continues to expand and achieved another quarter of double-digit growth as Ascend Ops and additional modules gain traction in the market. Mortgage revenue was down 3% in Q2 on volume, down 30%. The difference between revenue and volume growth representing the FICO pricing benefit we've mentioned previously and we expect mortgage revenue to remain modestly down in the second half. Q2 saw continued strong growth in automotive as new vehicle sales continue to rise and inventory supply recovery led to increasing marketing activity. In targeting growth in Q2 of 5% reflected slow growth across our retail channels and growth across other digital channels continue to perform well, particularly within digital activation and identity management. Health delivered another good quarter with growth across all key product lines and against a relatively stronger quarter in the prior year. Decision Analytics delivered consistent growth of 3% for the half, reflecting phasing of client activity in the current and prior years. North America Consumer Services delivered 5% growth in Q2, and our subscription business again demonstrated its strong countercyclical nature, strengthening to grow 9% in the quarter and 7% for the half. Marketplace reflected tighter credit supply, which reduced lending availability to consumers and matching capabilities within Experian Activate help navigate tighter lending availability as clients have been able to reach their target consumers more accurately. Latin America continued to grow well, up 10% for the quarter. Positive data continues to provide strong underlying structural growth trends and within the quarter, as usual, there was some deal phasing within the bureau with the number of deals signed early in Q3. Consumer Services in Latin America continued to scale very positively in Q2 with another great performance from our Limpa Nome debt renegotiation platform. A growing contribution from premium subscription services and rapid growth across our PagueVeloz payment platforms. The U.K. and Ireland region growth improved in Q2, up 2% organically. Growth in the bureau improved to 6% in the second quarter as we continue to win sizable new business deals, and there was strong demand for affordability products. Growth in Decision Analytics stepped up in Q2 following good growth within are against the road propositions. Consumer Services declined 5% in Q2. The tightening of lending criteria and reduction in product in market was reflected in marketplace, which declined 10% in the half. Our EMEA and Asia Pacific business again performed well, delivering another quarter of 8% growth. We've made good progress through the year, particularly in the Decisioning segment, where we grew 25% in the second quarter, following a number of deals across a number of markets. Our performance across the bureau Southern Europe and India also contributed to growth. Turning now to EBIT margin. As you can see from the chart, we delivered in line with our EBIT margin guidance with plus 20 basis points of expansion at constant currency and stable at actual rates. We continue to invest in our strategic priorities with the expansion and rollout of Ascend propositions and the development of Ascend Ops as well as investing in our employee services and verification proposition in both the North America and the U.K. and [ EMEA ]. We also launched Experian Smart Money within North America Consumer Services and further developed our marketplace insurance proposition through the addition of new providers. As a reminder, we also continue to deliver our global technology transformation within our normal financial metrics. Turning now to EPS where we delivered growth of 8% on an actual and constant FX basis. We delivered 6% benchmark EBIT growth from continuing operations. Our interest expense increased modestly to $68 million despite the large increase in market rates. Thanks to our forward rate fixing program, meaning the average interest rate on net debt was broadly stable at around 3%. And the tax rate was 25.1%, lower than the prior year due to phasing, and we continue to expect the tax rate to be within the 26% to 27% range for the full year. Taking a look at our usual reconciliation to statutory results. Our benchmark profit before tax grew 6% at constant rates and 6% at actual rates, driven by good revenue growth delivery and modest margin expansion. Acquisition-related expenses fell $8 million. The increase in fair value of contingent consideration payable on prior acquisitions was $24 million, and this was again driven by our Employer Services and Verification business in North America, reflecting its continuing strong performance. We incurred no restructuring relating costs in the period, the prior year charge related to the restructuring activities in EMEA and Asia Pacific. Statutory PBT before cash -- noncash items was up 18%. Amortization of acquisition intangibles was broadly flat at $95 million, and there were no impairment charges in the period, the prior year charge being related to the EMEA business. The credit on noncash financing remeasurements was driven principally by further gains on interest rate hedging, and that all leads to statutory profit before tax of $763 million. As you've seen, we've continued to be disciplined with our capital allocation. And as you can see from the top chart, over the past 5 years, our net debt has been stable and we ended the half with net debt to EBITDA of 1.8x, which is below our long-term guidance of 2 to 2.5x. We've tightly managed our interest costs, fixing large portions of our net debt at low interest rates, which has kept our average rate at around 3%. And over half our current debt is fixed for the next 6 years, and interest guidance remains unchanged for the year at $125 million to $130 million, broadly in line with FY '23. Turning now to cash flow. Nominal cash flow for the half was $711 million, with conversion at 77%. As you can see from the top chart here, historically, if you exclude the pandemic periods, our cash flow is in line with our history and weighted to the second half due to the timing of payments related to employee incentives. Our guidance on cash flow for the full year remains unchanged, and we expect to be over 90% conversion. As we signaled back in May, our return on capital employed is very strong, at 16.8%, the highest in the last 5 years and reflecting our disciplined approach to capital management. So turning now to FY '24 modeling considerations, which relate to our ongoing activities. We've again delivered on our financial guidance in the half despite the variable economic backdrop. And accordingly, all areas of our guidance remain unchanged. As a reminder, we expect 4% to 6% organic revenue growth for the full year. We expect to deliver modest margin progression at constant currency. We continue to expect FX to add between 0% and 1% to both revenue and EBIT growth. We expect net interest for the year to be between $125 million and $130 million. The benchmark tax rate is expected to be between 26% and 27%, reflecting changes in the U.K. corporation tax rate. The weighted average number of shares are expected to be in the region of $914 million for the year and CapEx is expected to be around 9% of revenue with cash flow conversion to be over 90%. And we have a share buyback program of up to $150 million to be completed by June 2024. With that, I'll hand you back to Brian.

Well, thanks, Lloyd. So in closing, it's been a very positive start to H1 with good revenue and earnings progression. Over a number of years, we've invested to diversify and innovate in our business to position ourselves in higher value opportunities. And this has strengthened our portfolio and mix of exposures even compared to previous downturns, we are less correlated with credit origination volumes than historically. Our strategy is working, and we have grown and grown share as a result, and we'll continue to address the market opportunities through our mix of superior data, unique products, breadth of capability and through extraction of synergies across B2B and B2C. And this, plus our balance sheet strength puts us in a very strong position as we look ahead. So in spite of the testing environment, we expect to have a good year and a year in line with our previous guidance. Now with that, I'm going to now hand you back to the operator, we'll move to your questions for which we will be joined by Craig Boundy. Operator, over to you.

[Operator Instructions] We will now go to your first question. And your first question comes from the line of Andrew Ripper from Liberum.

Yes. Morning, everybody. Well done on the results. It's a good performance. Just a couple from me, if that's okay. I wanted to start with Lat Am. The organic growth rate slowed down a little bit in the second quarter. But Lloyd, I think in your commentary, you mentioned there have been some phasing of wins with some new contracts coming in at the beginning of Q3. I wonder if you can give us a sense of the short-term outlook for Lat Am growth for Q3 and Q4 and also where the interest rates have started to come off a little bit. Is that a factor at all or not relevant in terms of the momentum that you're seeing in the business?

Great. Andrew, thanks for the questions. I'll hand over to Lloyd just to give you a bit of detail on Lat Am. I don't think we see any big change there. Just a reminder, still double-digit growth in the quarter. So very good performance. Lloyd, do you want to elaborate just on some of the splits there?

Yes. I think you saw a very strong performance in Consumer Services. I think that business continues to go from strength to strength. And in terms of outlook, we think the consumer business in Lat Am will be over $210 million for the full year, which is -- you look back just a few years have been a really strong performance and continues to grow well. Inside B2B, again, continued good performance, some of the old phasing we expect that to strengthen back again in Q3 on those that we signed in early October. So probably expect the second half to be in line or slightly ahead of the first half.

And Andrew, on the interest rate point, I don't think at this stage, we expect that to make a difference in the short term.

Okay. And then second question, there's a really good performance in the U.K. in the second quarter in the bureau business. I just wonder if you could say a little bit more about the work that you've won. And is that a case of gaining share of wallet? Or have you been winning work from some of the other U.K. players?

Yes, Andrew, I think it's probably really -- I mean, we had a really good Q2. But I think if you look at the 2 Quarters together, actually, the business has done very well. And in a market where credit is contracting, I think it sort of illustrates how well we are doing. I think we've been talking for a number of years now about how we've been improving the business, particularly on the data superiority side. We absolutely believe that we have the best-in-class state in the marketplace. And I think it's showing through in a lot of client wins. We've seen really good progress in financial services, other sectors like telco now starting to sort of tax some of the utility areas. And it's -- I think you don't really need to do too much work to look across at some of the other results that are published to show that we're outperforming and it is share of wallet because the like-for-like business, obviously, in the market is not increasing year-on-year right now. We see -- still see a weaker credit issuance market. So I mean, that's really down to that. But it's also down to -- not just on the data side, but also the strategy really is around data plus all of the additional products, which we have had a very long track record of success in the U.K. on, but it's really bringing all of that together and solving more and more solution -- more and more issues for our clients in a holistic way.

Just 1 final one very quickly for Lloyd. Lloyd, I appreciate the cash flow guidance and the seasonality of cash flow. Just on the working capital, the increase in the first half was quite a bit more relative to revenue growth than what we've seen in the last couple of 6 months performances. Is there anything particular that lies behind that?

I think if you're looking at the balance sheet for that, Andrew, one of the things you have to factor in is the U.S. dollar at the balance sheet date on the close of the half year last year was very strong. So if you're squeezing between the balance sheet, that will give you an outcome. If you look at just cash conversion, we're -- as I mentioned, we're broadly in line with where we we'd expect to be in the first half. The period ended over a weekend. So you often get a lot of receivables come in on the last day of the month, and I think we've mentioned that before. So no change. I expect to be well above 90% for the year as all.

We will now go to our next question. And your next question comes from the line of Kelsey Zhu from Autonomous.

I have 3 questions. So the first 1 is in North America, could you just talk just a little bit more about your revenue performance across different client segments. This is in relation to what TransUnion has talked about, which is they're seeing significant slowdown in their September and early October revenue trends? I don't think -- or I'm not sure this is the same trend you're seeing, but would love to get more colors around the revenue exposure there? My second question is on Consumer Services in North America. We've been seeing pickups in premium subscription, is it fair to assume that this trend will continue since we're in an environment where lenders will continue to pull back on the supply side and customers are searching for incremental ways of [ best ] credit? And then just lastly, on income employment verification services. you've mentioned that you've added consumer permission data capabilities. I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more color on how that works and how this fits into your overall portfolio with instant verification and manual verification.

Great. Thank you. So 3 questions there. I think I'll deal with the second 1 first on consumer service subscriptions because I think it's relatively easy to answer. I think this is a trend that we talked about pretty much at every results announcement for the last year because we sort of expected subscriptions to pick up. It always does. It's countercyclical. I think we have 3 very significant reference points for that now, [ GFC ], COVID and this credit period of credit tightening. So yes, I think is the answer. We expect that to continue to perform well this year. And I think that gives us a good balance of growth in the portfolio. In terms of revenue performance in North America, I think as we referenced, you're seeing, overall, the market is credit conditions have been tightened. But you are seeing quite different performance across different sectors. Fintech, I think, has been impacted more materially. Large banks, as we can see from their results are actually doing very well. Within that, we are actually expanding our share of business with some of those segments as well. So I think that gives you an overall picture of a difficult market, but performing very differently across some of the different segments. I think on the income and employment services, maybe we can just invite Craig to comment on that point around the data distribution.

Yes. Thank you. So we have a range of ways of accessing data into the verifications products. And one of them is for the consumer to contribute their own data into that would work in a sort of similar way than that Experian Boost operates by allowing them to basically connect a provider, either their payroll provider or their employer or indeed their own bank account and add that information into the journey. So all of this is about continuing to strengthen the capability we have there in our instant verification. I hope that helps.

We will now go to our next question. And your next question comes from the line of Simona Sarli from Bank of America.

I have 3, and I will take one by one. So it sounds like for the second half, you should be on track for a continuation of the trends you have reported in H1. But would you expect any material difference between Q3 and Q4? And in this context, is there any key factors we should keep in mind?

Yes, Simona, we're sitting here today, we're halfway through Q3. Q3 looks a lot like Q2, which internally is a lot like Q1. And I think that tells you in across our business, it's very stable. I think across into Q4, very similar. Obviously, it's a new financial year for a lot of lenders. Let's see what that brings. But sitting here today, second half as a whole looks a lot like the first half.

And the second question is if you can please provide a little bit more color around the growth trends that you have experienced in Q2? And also how they evolved so far halfway through Q3 for the legacy volume-driven [indiscernible] bureau and Marketplace in North America?

I think as Brian mentioned, if you look inside the bureau, we've got a very diverse client set. So we provide not just data, but analytical tools, an ever-increasing share of revenue from Ascend and the related tooling around that. the clarity bureau within that as well. So it's quite a broad and diverse sector. And as you've seen, very stable across that across the first and second quarter. And that really shows the breadth of things that we do for our clients and the number of clients that we do it for. So nothing really to add, just very stable.

And then on the market side. I think the second part of your question, Simona was on the marketplace in North America.

That's correct. Yes.

Yes, I think we've always pointed to when lending conditions get tighter, clearly, there are slightly less lending availability on credit marketplaces. So we saw a slightly higher decline in Marketplace revenue in the second quarter on the first quarter. That was more than offset by the countercyclical nature that we see in the in the subscription business that Brian mentioned a few minutes ago. So that's a business that responds to lending criteria in both directions. So when things ease, we expect that to come back quite quickly.

And the last question from my side is regarding capital allocation. So as you mentioned in H1, you are at 1.8, which is below your leverage target of 2% to 2.5%. And even if I keep in mind that you're going to have 150 million of share buyback overall for the fiscal year, you're going to be materially below the lower end of your leverage range. So how should we think about it? Does that leave scope for incremental share buyback?

Simona. I think we've announced the share buyback for this year. I think this is a good time for us to have financial flexibility. We're seeing after the rise in interest rates, a year or so ago, we're starting to see now valuations get more realistic in some of our markets. So it's a good time for us to have to have that flexibility. So as we've always said, we're pretty disciplined with capital management. If over time, we find ourselves inefficiently financed then we'd look to return capital to shareholders in terms of a buyback. But just now we see good opportunities to deploy capital for good returns. So that's going to be our focus.

We will now go to our next question. And your next question comes from the line of Harry Martin from Bernstein.

Got 2 questions, please. The first one on the premium subscription growth. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about how margin accretive that growth is? And then also, if you have any sense on members who've signed up and upgraded accounts to a premium subscription in the last few years, how long they would tend to stay as a paid subscription member before reverting back to a free member there? And then the second question on the marketplace. You had some quite encouraging commentary in insurance, but I wanted to ask about the credit marketplace. And when I compare the Experian side to Credit Karma or other peers, it seems to be in super premium cards like Amex or Chase where they seem to have more offers. So I wondered if there's any difference in the economics of your platform or why the sort of the focus of the growth of the marketplace in the first instance has been to grow elsewhere? Any color on that would be really useful.

Yes. Thanks for the questions. And maybe we'll deal with the second one first. I think the first point to make is that our marketplace is actually outperforming the market and outperforming Credit Karma. And we did see that your reports in terms of the number of offers I think there's a lot of detail that we'd have to go through with you because actually, we believe that there are a lot of -- there are a lot of premium offers in our marketplace. And I think that there are some gaps in your data. So it may well be there and it's a good idea for us to sit you down and take you through that. But we don't see any significant difference. There clearly are differences between the respective focus of the customer groups in each of the platforms. But in terms of the panel, we have a very broad panel and a lot of overlap. So I think that's probably one to follow up on. And then maybe Lloyd, if we can go on to the premium side?

Yes, just on the lender panel. Of course, the way it works because we target offers, not everybody can see every panel, so every panel member. So it's much broader than any individual would see. Just on subscription and the margins, we think of this as a single relationship with the consumer. So when we acquire a consumer, into a membership relationship. It might be free. And over their lifetime, they may spend periods that they're in a premium subscription. So we think of it as an integrated proposition on separately, most of our of our acquisition into the subscription base comes from a free member. So we don't really think of it as a separate business in that way, Harry. It's really integrated. And of course, over time as we expand the number of members as we improve the overall engagement, then more of our activation costs moves down the funnel from top of funnel to lower funnel. Of course, that's why over the long run, an engaged consumer platform is very profitable and very margin accretive. So that's the progress that we're making in that business.

And then if I could just follow up on that one. I mean the pickup in premium subscribers in the last 12 months related to the value of those products in a tougher credit environment. How sticky do you think those subscriptions can be?

So I think if you go back, probably the best way thing to do is if you look back at previous periods where we've had an inflow in the downturn, and COVID is probably the most recent one. You saw that there was a strong inflow, a countercyclical inflow, if you like. And then what you see is that inflows over about a year and then you have a couple of years where you have that higher base over which you have to grow. So we continue to grow, but it was tougher to grow on top of it when you get to the other side of it. But that, of course, is the period when you see things like marketplace come back and take a lot of growth. So you have to think of this as an integrated business that's very resilient. In periods of strain, but offers them a lot of leverage at the time when you see origination activity return.

We'll now go to the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Andy Grobler from BNP Paribas.

Just 2 from me, if I may. The first one, just going back to consumer. You mentioned that you'd been one major client within lead generation. I just wondered kind of how close do you think you are to the tipping point in that insurance lead generation marketplace and kind of the longer-term prospects that could come from that. And then secondly, again, new product, but verification in the U.K. seems to be making very good progress. Can you talk through the end market opportunity set here in the U.K. and how that would compare with the U.S.?

Yes. Okay. So thanks, Sandy. So on the consumer one, I'll take that, maybe I'll hand over to Craig for the verifications one. On the consumer one, I think we expect the insurance category to grow really strongly this year. As you mentioned in the release there, I think we continue to build our panel and taking quite a significant step in that direct insurers actually now come on to the panel. So I think that really in the next sort of 6 to 12 months, we'll know how that's playing out. But I think we're really encouraged by what we see, and we were I think we believe that we will now see this market move quite significantly. We'll learn a lot, I think, in the next 12 months, but some very positive steps taken this year and good growth in the insurance vertical, not standing the fact that we've only just sort of really announced the extension to that panel. So maybe, Craig, do you want to jump in on the verifications?

Yes. I mean verifications in the U.K., as you said, is early at 1 level, but we've done an excellent job building the asset of data that we need to fuel the propositions and make the analytics work and help the lending institutions with whom we have such excellent relationships start to deploy that. So we think that's a really interesting growth opportunity for us in the coming quarter. You see things like affordability progressively becoming more of how underwriting takes place. And so it's a good time for us to be starting those conversations with many of the partners.

Could I just follow up on that? Do you see this as incremental to your product suite in the U.K. or as in the U.K. kind of a big stand-alone revenue stream?

I think the way that we work with many of the clients is, as we do all over the world, is in a set of integrated propositions. So we help them, as Brian said earlier, solve problems and issues and opportunities that they have in their businesses. And so think this will be added in alongside other capabilities that we haven't formed part of overall relationships and propositions we have for clients.

We will now go to the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Rory McKenzie from UBS.

It's Rory here. Notwithstanding Lloyd's comment that you see as an integrated unit. And If we do try and exclude the growing subscription revenues in North America consumer, it looks like the average revenue of free membership was down quite a bit year-over-year in H1, maybe down 12% or so. So the first question is, is that a fair estimate, the reduction in Marketplace revenues? The second question is, can you talk a bit more or you and longer term about how you see monetization of that membership base evolving? And then finally, I wanted to ask about the U.S. market B2B. With the current redistribution of the lending landscape, has that changed your ambition on how far you could roll out the fast product range into those smaller self-serve clients?

I'll maybe take the marketplace question. So I think the answer is no, Rory. Happy to help you with the numbers offline. So marketplace in North America in Q1 was down 4% and in Q2, it was down 7%. So pretty much in line with what you would expect, given tighter lending conditions and equally, membership went from 6% growth to 9% growth. We had good growth in our Partner Solutions business across the half, actually. So I think as I mentioned earlier, we view this as a set of integrated propositions with an enduring relationship with consumers, with over time, we get to help them. And as I said we've a -- as the things we can do gets broader, we're moving to auto insurance expansion and other areas our activation activity moves down the funnel. So lifetime value we think will expand and cost of activation reduces. So that gives you the long-term financial model, I think. Brian, lending landscape?

I got disconnected. Can you just get you just go over your second question again, I think about the U.S. B2B market and sort of redistribution? What was the [indiscernible]?

Just, I guess, how the lending availability is concentrating in the Tier 1 to Tier 2 institutions? I know in the past, you've talked about having ambitions to kind of broaden your penetration of a much smaller part of the landscape. I wonder that has changed at all given the shakeout we've seen and are seeing at the moment?

I think -- I don't think he can -- first of all, I think in the U.S. Tier 1 have a very big market share and have had for quite some time, there are, we think, about 3,500 sort of lending institutions in the U.S., a very big market. So inevitably, year-over-year, you're going to see some segments when some segments lose, some shakeouts here and there. I think the overall level of innovation in the marketplace will continue. So I don't really think that landscape is going to change dramatically. As we said earlier, we have a very broad spread of business. We have a very strong position in Tier 1. We also have a very strong position in fintech and small and community and regional banks. We do have opportunities across the piece. So I don't know if there's a sort of a big takeaway from what's happening in 1 sort of 12-month period, I think the market is pretty dynamic and will continue to be over the longer term.

And Rory, if I'd just add, take Ascend as an example. We've got around 80 clients on Ascend in North America. And as Brian just mentioned, there's north far of 4,000 financial institutions in the U.S.. So that's a very big broad market for us to take Ascend as 1 example, too. I don't know, Craig, do you want to jump in on this one, anything to add?

I mean I think that's a good way to categorize it. I mean there's a very large set of lenders who are different times tighten and loosen their credit policies, but still a lot of different organizations for us to work with and we have a good set of propositions for all of them. So I think that's a good way to think about it.

And your next question comes from the line of Arthur Truslove from Citi.

A few from me, if I may. The first question was for the group as a whole, the consumer business margin went up and the B2B margin went down. I was just wondering if you could comment on how both of those things happened and what drove them? Second question, when you think about the performance of the bureau outside of mortgage, clearly very stable, Q2 over Q1? Are you able to give us an idea of the contribution of pricing within that organic growth and perhaps how that's evolved relative to previous years in a more inflationary environment? And then third question for me, just on the verification side. If I understand correctly, you have an employer services business, which sort of helps with employers with compliance and documents, all that kind of thing and verifications business as well. Of the 190 million of revenue roughly that you're expecting, how much of that are you expecting to be on the sort of Employer Services side? And how much are you expecting to be on the Verification side?

Okay. I'll take a few of those. Maybe start from the last one. Verifications Employer Services, it's a pretty integrated business. Obviously, we get our data and a lot of our exclusive records from the employee services business. We don't disclose the split but both grew very strongly during the period, and that's been true throughout this year where we continue to take strong elements of share against market backdrop in that market where a lot of it is mortgage-related verifications is quite slow. So 20% growth, we think for the full year across that business combines great performance. Bureau outside mortgage pricing, no real difference in pricing contribution in this period than previously. Most of our -- the way that we sell is mostly around expanding our propositions and relationships into broader product sets. So no real difference in our pricing stance. And then on margin, I think it's easier to look at margin in the full year rather than the half. If you look back often you see the consumer margin is stronger in the first half than the second half, if you just look back. But on an upward trend, I think that's helpful to see. You've seen over the last 4 or 5 years as we've been growing the consumer business. It's been growing quite nicely. Within the B2B business, obviously, mix plays a part, some were in a period of tighter lending supply that we've been in for the last year. You see some of the volumetric side of the business, a little weaker. Some of our new growing businesses. So there's a mix effect there. But all as we guided, so very much in line with our modest margin progression for the group in the half and will be exactly there in the full year as well.

We'll now take the next question, and the question comes from the line of James Rose from Barclays.

I just got one, please. On marketplace in the U.S., so despite revenues slowing in the second quarter. What's been your ability to onboard new partners during the period and during the half? Would you say that's on track or behind or ahead of your expectations despite the tighter lending standards or tighter customer acquisition budget that's probably been?

James. I don't think that there's been any real impact in the quarter, specifically. I think over quite a long period of time, we've expanded the number of lenders on the panel. You do see variations quarter-on-quarter, but the number of products that are made available, that's more linked to their own credit policies and what they want to sell. So I don't think that there's any real change on that front. And as I'm missing something, Craig, anything you want to add on that? .

No, I mean, I think that's right. I think no change. I mean, on track.

Our next question comes from the line of Karl Green from RBC.

I've got 2 questions. I'll just take them in turn. The first 1 is just around the launch of Experian Smart Money, the digital checking account, which looks really interesting. Just wondered if you could talk through the mechanics of that. How is that actually working in practice? Are you partnering with a white label provider on the financial services side? I think in terms of thinking about banking regulation, et cetera. Yes, start with that one, please.

Yes. The smart money proposition is done with a banking partner. So we comply with all the regulations that are around that. But the banking regulations that -- part of that applied to the bank partner. It's a very similar setup that you see with a lot of fintech players in the U.S. market, so no different from that perspective.

Right. So you'll basically be taking a kind of fee referral fee type model, presumably fairly high margins. Is that fair?

Yes, 2 aspects to it, Karl. So obviously, for us using that relationship to be able to help consumers process transactions and make those transactions available to improve their credit score and to build their credit positions is all part of our strategy. So that's a pretty unique feature in the market and a pretty important piece of our overall consumer proposition. Clearly, as part of a normal fee, there's an interchange fee that we receive and part of that gets paid to the banking as a service provider who fulfills on our behalf. So a normal mechanism.

And then the second question, a much broader question. I think given the long and variable lags of monetary policy tightening, are you currently comfortable with consensus for a rebound in organic growth to 7% in fiscal '25?

Yes. I think we'll provide some guidance for next year when we get to May. I think you've seen this year, we got a pretty -- last year and this year, we've got a good track record of of executing against the commitments we make and the guidance we gave for the year ahead. We're right now, rock solid in the center of our range for this year, and let's see what the environment brings. And we deliver guidance for next year in May.

We will now take our final question for today. And your final question comes from the line of Simona Sarli, Bank of America.

Just a quick follow-up from my side. Can you please remind us about your M&A strategy? And you have also talked about valuations now being a little bit more reasonable in the market. So where do you see the like opportunities out there are specific geographies or solutions where you would like to grow?

Simona. There's no change really to our M&A strategy. We're always looking for sensible additions to our business in the core areas of credit, fraud, identity, health, other areas. So none of them -- they'll all be -- we're always looking for acquisitions that are a good strategic fit. The only difference is we'll be able to make buyer and seller expectations meet. I think Lloyd's comment really was -- we were talking about this time last year. There was really a sort of suspension of disbelief and seller expectations on multiples have not adjusted. We do see some moderation in that, I would say some. So I think it's possible that we'll be able to move forward in the next 12 months in the way that we haven't been able to. But again, I think it really comes down to individual situations and whether we can get any of those across the line. Every year, we sat here, you can never really predict what's in your pipeline, whether anything is actually going to execute or not. And we always have a strong pipeline of opportunities. So no change in terms of the focus. We look to add materially to our data assets to bureaus, if we can find good bureau acquisitions, fraud, identity. None of the spaces will be really a surprise to anybody.

Thank you. I will now hand the call back to Brian for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you. So that concludes today's session. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. Hope you all have a good day, and we look forward to speaking to you again in January for our Q3 trading update.