Equifax Says VantageScore Price Freeze Through 2027 and Free Data Add-Ons Are Its Answer to FICO Fight and Tri-Merge Threat as Government Pipeline Doubles
Barclays 24th Annual Global Financial Services Conference, September 14, 2026
Equifax management used its Barclays conference appearance to lay out how it intends to defend its mortgage franchise in a regulatory fight that has put the company "in the blast radius," in CEO Mark Begor's words. The company is holding its $1 VantageScore price flat through 2027, adding income, employment and alternative payment data to its credit file at no charge, and arguing that the tri-merge requirement is likely to survive. It also gave investors fresh sizing on the mortgage recovery option, a second look at the government vertical, and a higher AI productivity target. The shares have fallen about 36% over the past year and trade at roughly 16 times forward earnings, with a market capitalization of about $17.2 billion.
The FICO Fight and the Pulte Factor
Begor described the stream of public commentary from FHFA Director Bill Pulte, which he put at 39 posts in the past 10 days, as aimed primarily at FICO's pricing rather than at the bureaus. "Our view and the dialogues that we've had with him and his staff is that he's been very frustrated around the FICO price increases," Begor said. Pulte announced the shift to full VantageScore adoption on a Thursday night about a week ago, and as of Friday all lenders can use either score for agency mortgages. Previously, roughly 30 lenders had been phased in.
The price gap is large. Begor put FICO at roughly $10 per score against $1 for VantageScore, which the three bureaus own. Including the credit file, he said a VantageScore-based file costs about 45% less than one using FICO. With an estimated 6 to 8 of every 10 loans that enter the process never closing, the mortgage industry's potential savings exceed $1 billion by Equifax's math. Equifax has committed to hold the VantageScore price at $1 through 2027 "to give some visibility to drive adoption." Begor declined to commit beyond that, but said Equifax will not follow FICO's pricing model: "We're never going to have larger increases like FICO has been doing. It's just not our model."
The credit file itself will continue to see "modest price increases" consistent with the company's long-term framework of 6% to 8% growth in U.S. Information Solutions. Management stressed that price is only one lever, and not the main one.
Tri-Merge Under Review, With About $900 Million of Revenue at Stake
The more consequential question for Equifax is whether regulators move from tri-merge to bi-merge or single-file pulls. Begor said he was unsure whether the FHFA is actively revisiting the idea or simply still has it under analysis, but he laid out a detailed defense. About 10 million U.S. consumers appear at only one of the three bureaus, and for the roughly 60 million consumers in the core of financial services, scores across the bureaus can differ by 40 to 60 points because lenders do not report to all three. A bi-merge pull would risk denying credit to some applicants and charging others more. It would also add risk to federally backed loans, since lenders could miss negative trade lines.
Begor also argued that the most sophisticated lenders already pull tri-merge by choice, including when balance-sheeting mortgages and in non-mortgage lending where no requirement exists. On the Mortgage Bankers Association's push for a single file, he said the group "represents mortgage originators, not consumers," and that no consumer advocates are calling for a move away from the current structure.
CFO John Gamble quantified the exposure. The part of the Equifax file sold into tri-merge, mainly the trended credit file, is about 30% of USIS mortgage revenue, or "plus or minus $900 million," against total company revenue of about $6.7 billion. That is a substantial figure, though not one that threatens the model by itself.
Differentiating the File in a One-Bureau World
The most notable strategic disclosure was how Equifax is responding to the shift in pull behavior. Begor said that three years ago, prequalification pulls were predominantly tri-merge, but as FICO pricing rose they moved to a single-bureau pull, with a tri-merge pull required at application by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Equifax has spent the last 6 to 12 months building differentiation for that single-bureau pull.
The company is adding income and employment attributes from The Work Number to its mortgage credit file, along with 54 attributes drawn from cell phone, streaming and utility payment data. Both are being provided free "in order to drive share gains." The logic is that a lender in the prequalification phase has historically seen only a score. "You don't know that he's working. You don't know if his income meets the debt-to-income ratios," Begor said, and the new data lets lenders decide which consumers to pursue. The same income and employment enrichment is being extended to auto, card and personal loan files. Begor credited the cloud migration for making this feasible, calling it work that was "super complex for us to do before."
The tradeoff is that Equifax is giving away data that has value, and the share gains it hopes for are not yet visible in the numbers.
Mortgage: Recovery Delayed, but the Option Is Bigger Than Many Assume
Management was candid that the mortgage backdrop has worsened. The 10-year Treasury touched 5% on the day of the presentation, pushing mortgage rates to 7% or higher and weighing on both refinancing and purchase activity. Equifax's July guidance assumed a decline in mortgage originations, and Gamble acknowledged that the company has not updated guidance since rates moved up "meaningfully," with an impact on transaction volumes visible over the past month. Begor said mortgage activity is roughly 50% below historic levels.
Begor offered a sizing of the upside. A normal mortgage market, which he placed in 2027 or 2028, would add more than $1 billion of incremental revenue and more than $700 million of incremental margin, all of which he said would flow to shareholders through EPS, the dividend and buybacks. There are about 15 million mortgages with rates above 6%, and nearly 10% above 6.5%, so a decline of about 0.25 point in rates is enough to generate a refinancing response, as seen in March. He added that the company is not building cost or capital spending ahead of a recovery.
The long-term framework does not require that recovery. Equifax maintains it can deliver 7% to 10% revenue growth, including a couple of points from GDP, with 50 basis points of annual operating leverage, in a flat mortgage market.
On the broader consumer, Begor was constructive but not unqualified. Employment is strong, and customers have not changed cutoff scores or pulled back originations. He conceded that the low-end subprime consumer has been pressured by inflation, particularly fuel, for some time, and that current inflation is "not helpful for the economy."
Government: $100 Million of New ACV, But a Negative Second Quarter
Within Workforce Solutions, the government vertical is an approximately $800 million business addressing a roughly $5 billion market. Begor tied the opportunity to the administration's focus on improper payments, which the government estimates at just under $200 billion of roughly $1 trillion in annual social services spending, and to income-verification requirements for food stamps and Medicaid added by last July's budget legislation. The commercial pipeline in the vertical doubled year over year.
Equifax said it landed about $100 million of new annual contract value, mostly in the second quarter, and about $200 million of renewals. The new contracts largely benefit 2027, with a small contribution in the fourth quarter. Begor said retention is "very, very high" because customers become embedded in state workflows. He would not commit to disclosing ACV regularly, joking that investors "want everything."
Gamble kept expectations grounded. Government revenue was negative in the second quarter, and the company expects a return to growth in the second half and further improvement in 2027. Begor said the vertical should eventually grow at the top end of the low-double-digit range targeted for Workforce Solutions, but stressed that this is a long-term view rather than a near-term forecast.
Talent, Records and Manual Verification
Talent, the third-largest Workforce Solutions vertical, has outperformed a soft hiring market. Begor said job changes are running in the mid-60 millions annually, down from a normal level of around 70 million. Growth is being driven by record additions, up 10% in the second quarter and for the half, which raise hit rates, plus new products including an hourly-worker solution and post-hire incarceration monitoring built on the Appriss Insights data. Talent is also a $5 billion addressable market.
Equifax holds about 110 million income records out of roughly 250 million income-producing Americans, with about 170 million active records counting multiple jobs. Targets for growth include self-employed workers, benefit administrators and the roughly 30 million defined-benefit pensioners. The company has added about 50 partners in five years.
Equifax is also reversing course on manual verification, an activity it exited in the past. Because even a 50% hit rate leaves 30% to 50% of transactions needing another verification path, customers have asked for a complete solution. Begor said Equifax is now rolling out offerings in mortgage, background screening and government that use manual work or AI for records it lacks. Gamble said Workforce Solutions margins will be held at just over 50% while the company invests in products, sales channels and record contributions.
Capital Allocation and AI Productivity
Equifax intends to grow its dividend in line with earnings, which Begor characterized as mid-teens growth excluding a mortgage recovery, pursue bolt-on acquisitions, and use the remaining free cash flow for buybacks while keeping a strong investment-grade balance sheet. Over the trailing 12 months it repurchased $1.4 billion of stock, including $500 million in the fourth quarter of last year. The recently announced $740 million acquisition of Círculo de Crédito in Mexico is a model for the bolt-on approach, with 20%-plus revenue growth and mid-40s EBITDA margins.
The AI productivity target was raised in July to $150 million from $75 million. The 2026 operating leverage guide is 75 basis points, versus 50 basis points in the long-term framework, with much of the difference attributed to AI. At the half, operating leverage stood at 110 basis points. Begor pointed to agents handling calls and paper processing in the operations center, which employs a couple of thousand people, and to productivity gains among engineers.