CHICAGO–Acxiom Corp., Little Rock, AK, and PerformanceData, Chicago, a division of Trans Union LLC, announced at the National Center for Database Marketing's Summer '99 show here that they have formed an agreement to link databases to combine credit and real property/demographic data for Fair Credit Reporting Act compliant pre-screen marketing programs.
Basically, the data link will give customers an opportunity to make firm credit offers, as allowed under the FCRA, without going through the current, two-step process of identifying prospective homeowners with real property and demographic characteristics, followed by credit bureau pre-screening.
The agreement combines Acxiom’s InfoBase database of over 73 million residential properties and demographic information on more than 95 million households with PerformanceData's credit information of more than 140 million individuals. Only those records that are in both files will be available through the new service. The service is expected to be available later this year.
“The joint product will offer direct marketers who target homeowners a resource to reach the right prospects with the right firm offers of credit,” said Jan L. Davis, executive vice president, PerformanceData.
To ensure that the program is FCRA compliant, it will require that mailings have a permissible purpose and include a firm offer of credit. The service will initially be limited to home equity mailings and will be available through both Acxiom and PerformanceData.
