Using Big Data To Combat SA's Scourge Of Corruption

TransUnion’s Lifestyle Assessment product enables organisations to identify fraud and corruption indicators linked to employees and suppliers.

- Timothy Rangongo

As a credit bureau TransUnion has access to a big consumer data universe. It holds a wealth of information on consumers – their payment profiles (affording the bureau an understanding of how financially distressed someone is), information on the ownership of assets such as vehicles and properties, including how much is still outstanding on them, and more.

TransUnion essentially has a bird’seye view of the financial standing of the average South African consumer, making it uniquely placed to help with the fight against corruption with the rollout of its Lifestyle Assessment – a service that enables organisations to identify fraud and corruption indicators linked to employees and suppliers. TransUnion runs this service on employees and suppliers on behalf of organisations – sometimes not to find the rotten apple, but to also help find apples that are at a greater risk of rotting, in what they call risk segmentation.

Finding the devil in the detail