Experian Inc., which has said it wants to become less reliant on financial services companies, was expected to announce a subscription credit-monitoring service for small-business owners Monday.
For $99 a year, subscribers can get unlimited access to their credit reports. Previously, these business owners had to pay each time the credit bureau pulled a report.
The service also includes e-mail alerts when there is a change in a customer’s credit rating, late payments, liens, judgments, or bankruptcies.
The bureau already offered a portfolio management service to large financial institutions that regularly monitor the credit of their largest vendors and clients.
“We realized how much demand there was for consumers who wanted to pull not just their credit report, but also their small-business credit report,” said Craig Whitney, the senior director of access solutions and market intelligence in Experian’s business information solutions group, in an interview last week.
Nancy Atkinson, a senior analyst at the Boston research firm Aite Group LLC, said that “the price point certainly is reasonable. It’s going to be interesting to see how much this product is embraced by small businesses, because they often need to do a better job of knowing who they’re partnering with.”
Intuit Inc., the maker of Quicken software, and Microsoft Corp. have agreed to syndicate a private-label version of the service, and Experian is pursuing similar deals with financial services companies, Mr. Whitney said.
He said Experian came up with the idea two years ago, when it redesigned its small-business reports Web site, where users can go to buy a credit report. The redesigned site displays a company’s current credit score with a graphic indicating how the score has changed over the previous three months. The site also includes a library of material on credit topics.
A former unit of the British conglomerate GUS PLC, Experian is scheduled to begin trading as a stand-alone company today. With revenue of $3 billion, it will be one of the 50 largest companies on the London Stock Exchange.
The bureau has grown rapidly in the past five years through more than 80 acquisitions. Chief executive Don Robert has moved to the bureau’s new headquarters in Nottingham, England, from its main U.S. office in Costa Mesa, Calif.
