Certainly. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to be placed into the queue, you may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. We ask you please ask 1 question, 1 follow-up, then return to the queue. And once again, that star 1 to be placed into the question queue. Our first question today is coming from Jeff Meuler from Baird. Your line is now live.

Yes. Thank you. Good morning. Hey, really good job here on margins. I hear you that your early innings on AI productivity. Can you just maybe help us dig through any puts and takes for 2027? Mortgage volumes are obviously 1. I do not know if there is any other, like, grow over considerations, if there is like, 1 time adjustments this year to incentive comp accruals because of what is going on in mortgage or anything like that. But it seems like there is good momentum on the AI productivity side that should continue to build. So just trying to think through margins holistically.

Yes. Thanks, Jeff. We are very pleased with momentum that we have on our cost management and AI productivity. As you know, back in February, we set out a $75 million goal over the next couple of years for cost out, net cost out from AI productivity. We doubled that in Julia to a 150 million to give us. You know, because of the momentum we have. And we are just really pleased with the momentum in a post-cloud world. As you know, we invested heavily in our tech. So our team and our infrastructure is highly tech enabled. With that huge investment we made over the last 5 years. And we are just seeing our ability to deploy AI in operation and technology and our support functions, you know, really scaling very rapidly. And, I think you are pleased, and so are we, that it is showing up in our margins this year even with the headwinds, you know, of the mortgage market. In September and in the fourth quarter that are quite substantial, we are still increasing our mortgage guide for the year. And we believe that gives us real momentum and confidence as we move into 2027. You know, we are not ready to give guidance in 2027. For 2027, we will do that in February. But clearly, if mortgage rates stay where they are, you know, mortgage activity will be down in 2027, as John laid out. Outside of that, we do not think about anything else as being, you know, kinda meaningful on a year over year basis. You know, our momentum in our diversified markets is very strong. We see real momentum in EWS as we move through the through the year and into the fourth quarter. You on their path back to their long term framework growth, which I think is really positive. USIS is inside of their LTF, and performing well, and the same, you know, with international. You know? So we are pleased with that. You know, in mortgage specifically, while activity at current levels, you know, if that continues in 2027, that would clearly be a meaningful negative that, you know, we will all be able to size. We have the positive of Vantage conversion. You know, when we look to 2027. And I am sure you are thinking about that just as we are. That momentum is super strong and, you know, when the FHFA opened up, you know, the LLPA tables a few weeks ago. What we are hearing from our mortgage customers is they are going to move to the $1 Vantage to take advantage of that significant price delta versus the FICO score. So that is something that should be a positive for us in 2027, and we will size that when we get to February. And you specifically asked about AIP, how our bonuses work, and just so you are aware, the bulk of our bonuses are paid based on earning. On EPS. Operating profit and individual performance objectives. And as you know, our operating profit and EPS performance for the year looks very similar to where we started back in February.

Very helpful. And then just with the personal AI agent rollouts and the adoption that has been happening recently. Could you just comment on how you are thinking through potential impacts on your business or your customers, things like inquiry volumes in any verticals, or anything on identity solutions or potentially something on like twin data or alternatives if it is agentics remove friction?

Yes, it is still super early days on that, Jeff, from a customer perspective. Obviously, everyone's talking about it, everyone's focused on it, We are investing heavily to be enabled to interact in that way. I would tell you there is very little activity right now, although lots of discussions with our customers. So we wanna be prepared and really built for it. And because of our big tech investment, and the AI enablement that we have really broadly across Equifax, we think we will be ready when it moves forward. We think about it as a net positive. In the future. Think about 2027, 2028, 2029 as that enables that the ability for our customers to more rapidly utilize our unique solutions you know, that becomes advantageous to us. Because as you know, there is a lot of friction around change with our customers when they wanna use 1 of our new higher performing scores, 1 of our new higher performing models, or some of our products that deliver more value. So, you know, we view AI as a something that is gonna be accretive not only to our top line, but also our bottom line. We already talked about in your first question about kind of AI cost efficiencies and productivity inside of Equifax and how we operate in tech and operations, you know, that clearly is a big deal, part of the 150 million we have laid out as a multiyear cost out goal. And as I said, and I think John said also, it is still early innings for that, meaning we are continuing to see positive momentum as far as deployment in our ability to achieve the $150 million and look for going north of that. And on the product side, really great work by our team to AI enable a lot of our solutions You now have our new products being rolled out that have AI capabilities in them, as you described, but also AI performance lifts because we are adding more data into solutions, which is also a big positive for us. You know, as you know, we talked about our vitality index, which continues to scale. 17% in the quarter was actually a record for Equifax. We have never been that high, and in a post cloud Equifax environment, in all our focus on innovation new products, leveraging our differentiated data, and AI enabling those solutions you know, that 17%, you know, is a great momentum for us as we move through the quarter and into 2027. Thank you.

Our next question today is coming Toni Kaplan from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now live.

Thanks so much. On Slide 7, you noted that the twin indicators driving share gains in mortgage. I was hoping you could just give some additional color on that, how much of the market and pre-qual you think you have or however you want to quantify share in sort of that TriMerge area? Thanks.

Yeah. it is a great question, Toni. it is 1 that we view as a real asset for Equifax. As you know, we, you know, rolled it out, you know, a little less than a year ago. it is still. I would characterize it as early days in that deployment, but the response from customers is super positive. As you know, the NBA meeting was last week. Our team was there, you know, in full force, and, you know, that is just 1 of the items that we had a lot of discussions about as well as some of our other new products that we are rolling out for the mortgage space, like Mortgage Qualify from the EWS business and the new score solution that we have from USIS. On Twin Indicator, it provides very unique visibility for our customers, and, you know, there is a there is a deployment implementation time frame that, you know, really lags some of the revenue benefit that we get that is just a reality of process change in our industry, but momentum that we have with our customers is positive. We have not quantified the actual share gains, but we know they are positive. I think you can see it in our revenue numbers for USIS in mortgage, as well as how we characterize the performance versus the market as being positive. And then I would just add a couple reminders. Number 1, you know, we are also rolling out the NC plus attributes. The cell phone utility attributes, so 54 attributes we are adding to our mortgage credit file also for free. To differentiate it in the pre-qual and pre-application process We are getting great feedback from customers there. that is another example that takes time for our customers to really adopt to the ability to ingest those additional attributes and that underwriting they are doing in the pre-qual marketing phase is also in the underwriting stage, but you know, we all know that more data, you know, is valuable in an underwriting process, and our customers are focused on how do they optimize their marketing funnel, particularly in a super challenging market that we are in. So our ability to offer those unique solutions that are accretive to the core credit file at no cost, we think, is an advantage. So second reminder is that we are doing the same thing with the TWN indicator in AutoCard and P loan. So that is going to benefit our diversified markets business in USIS. As we really do the same thing, work with the auto card and consumer finance or personal loan space to really optimize their marketing funnel and originations by providing that incremental data on, you know, someone's employment status, you know, their income last year, their employer, etcetera, you know, which really aids them in positioning the right product. And also, optimizing, you know, who they focus on as they are trying to bring people through the marketing funnel to make sure that they can, you know, get someone, you know, to a closed loan, which is where they make the money.

Great. And then in government, really nice momentum in the new wins and renewals. You have been calling that out the last 2 quarters. I guess now that we have passed the ninethirty fiscal year end how does that impact the sales process in government? Do you tend to get more new sales at the end of their fiscal year or the beginning of the next year when new budget cycles start? Like, just wanted to understand the dynamic on the sales cycle in government. Thanks.

Yes, it is a great question. Not every state is on that 09:30, so others are on different time frames. But you really have to separate what I would call revenue showing up in our P&L, meaning the sales become, you know, online and active and become revenue versus the sales cycle. The sales cycle is can be very long. In government as it is in all of our businesses, but in government in particular. And when we talk about you know, signing a contract, know, which we did, you know, this quarter, we talked about it in Julia again from our strong second quarter on contract signings. We are clear about some visibility to you, but we know kind of exactly you know, with some real confidence of when that is gonna turn into revenue. You know? So there is a there is a differentiation there. So when it comes to contract signings, happen through the year. They can be lumpy, as we have said, and, you know, second quarter was particularly strong because of 1 large 1 and a couple of other meaningful ones, but it does not change the commercial cycle that we have. And as we have talked about on this call, we talked about it back in Julia and in February, the commercial momentum is extremely strong. Across both the federal, state, and local level. there is a lot of interest. Some of it o b 3 related, which puts you know, more requirements on the states. But also more broadly, the unique solutions that we deliver. Remember, we deliver speed of social service delivery. We deliver the productivity of the caseworker, and we also deliver that integrity. So there is a very strong value prop. So I would think about you should think about and it is how we operate, that commercial activity is happening every day, and I think I highlighted in my comments that you know, for example, we have and we. I think we talked about it in Julia also. We have several. Actually, more than several large federal commercial discussions going on that are quite meaningful. And those take time before they crystallize into a contract signing, and then there is an element of when they become revenue. But, you know, what is encouraging to us is the pipeline is robust, the conversations are robust, and our team is out there. And then I highlighted in my comments all also that we are rolling out new solutions. So we are bringing more solutions to our customers in the federal state and local government to really help them better manage the delivery of social services and then the integrity around that social service delivery. So we are we are very energized around the progress by the team and the momentum as we you know, we the third quarter, we move into fourth, and then, obviously, we have got a lot of momentum about the setup we have for 2027. Thank you.

Our next question today is coming from Andrew Steinerman from JPMorgan. Your line is now live.

Hi. I have a similar question about the setup for Verifier, particularly government for 2027. I assume the kind of the strongest thing that you guys feel like you have locked in for Verifier is the record growth that is already kind of underway and exiting for 2027. You just remind us the puts and takes? What should we be thinking about of what is going to be the driver of Verifier? I assume it is going to be government contracts.

Yes, it is multifaceted. As you know, Andrew, records is certainly a positive. We had a very strong records quarter and I think we highlighted in our comments that we have a strong pipeline for continued record addition. that is been a strength of Chad and the EWS team for multiple years, and it continues. And, again, a reminder which sometimes our investors forget, you know, while we have you know, growing records, you know, up kinda low double digits, you know, over the last number of years, there is still a super long runway. We finished the quarter you know, with a 110 million current people or SSNs in our dataset. Obviously, we have more records than that because people have multiple jobs, you know, but the 110 million compares to 250 million income producing Americans. So, you know, we have a runway to more than double the dataset going forward. And, obviously, that is gonna take time. So records is a big deal. As you know, when you think about 2027, we typically do price increases on January 1, so those will flow into you know, EWS and the verifier, you know, businesses in 2027, and, we have visibility from an Equifax perspective about what that is. You have also got new product rollouts and new customer penetration. Penetration's a big deal because of the $15 billion TAM they participate in, so the ability to add new customers we have got visibility. And I think you pointed out we highlighted in July, the large new state contracts that we have shared with you that are gonna be substantially benefiting 2027. there is some fourth quarter impact but the vast majority of that is in 2027. So you see that, and obviously, we do too, which is know, positive. And then I would add just the commercial momentum. I think you have seen our talent business, very strong performance in a tougher market for white collar hiring. You know, but strong double digit, you know, 20% kind of growth that is from new products, that is from penetration into that into that big $5 billion TAM, so, we are pleased with that. Our consumer finance or auto card personal loan business performing very well. As we look forward to 2027, we expect that kind of performance to continue. So we have got a lot of confidence in that business getting back to their inside of their LTFF framework as we get into 2027.

Thanks, Mark.

Appreciate it. Next question is coming from Shlomo Rosenbaum from Stifel. Your line is now live.

Hi, thank you very much for taking my questions. Mark, I want to ask a little bit about this discussion about tri-merge to bi-merge. And can you just talk a little bit when you just described to us what the sentiment is amongst your largest lenders? And terms of moving there because obviously there is a potential to save costs if you are only if you are using bi-merge instead of tri-merge, but what are their other considerations and how do they think about it when you talk to them about it?

Well, the large lenders, the ones that make the most difference. Yeah, would say broadly and you could add lenders, you could add many regulators, you could add legislatures, think about Congress. You could think about Treasury, who has a role in know, the fact that the federal government owns, you know, liability on a lot of loans if they do not, deliver. You know, there is this kind of broad consensus that TriMerge delivers a lot of value around access to credit, having the right price for the applicant or the homeowner or future homeowner or consumer and then also safety and soundness. You know? So when you think about from a mortgage originator standpoint, what are they focused on? They are focused on, you know, managing their marketing funnel. You know, they spend a lot of money, and then typically, they are doing digital originations. And so they wanna make sure that, when they have someone who is coming to their website, typically, in order to, you know, apply for a refi or apply for a new home loan mortgage, that they can approve that consumer and that applicant. And a big part of that is having the complete information and I think we all know that there is enough significant differences between the 3 bureaus on the credit file that is pulling 3 delivers a more accurate a more complete and also includes more people and gives them, you know, a better pricing. there is 11 million US consumers that are only on 1 credit bureau. You know, if you are gonna pull 2 or 1, you know, that consumer may not get approved. And I think we know that there is 40 to 50 million U. S. Consumers, most of us on the phone, that have a, you know, 20 to 40 difference the 3 credit bureaus because not every financial institution contributes data to all 3 bureaus. that is a meaningful difference. If you are pulling 2, you do not pull that higher score for that consumer. They end up paying a higher price, or maybe they do not get approved. You know? So it is a big element of the approval process. And then the flip side, you know, is if you are the government, or if you are a balance sheet lender, which is still a meaningful part, you know, of the mortgage market, you wanna make sure you get all of those trade lines from a safety and soundness If you are only pulling 1 or 2 files and you do not pull that third that has maybe some of those more negative trade lines, you have got a riskier loan. You know? So we think there is kind of broad based support for it. I think as you know, FHA and VA have come out very clearly, you know, back in April. They put out a press release supporting Vantage. And also in that press release supported TriMerge. You know? So I think, you know, they clearly understand the value of TriMerge for the consumer of approving more, and then the value around making sure they get the best price, meaning the lowest price that meets their risk profile because getting all the data, and then the safety and soundness that comes from it. So we thought it was important because there is a, you know, been a lot of confusion, I think, in our investor base about you know, how large could an impact be if HFA decided to go to bimerge. You know, that is why we decided to size it. You know, we view it as very manageable, and likely for those on the call today, you know, a framework that is a lot less than perhaps you were thinking over the last month or 2 is that dialogue has been in the press and so on. So that was our intention was to frame it, but, you know, look, we think TriMerge is right for the consumer. We also think it is right for the mortgage industry, and also we think it is right for federally guaranteed mortgages.

Okay, thanks. And just for my follow-up, John, maybe you could help us out a little bit, just as everyone is trying to incorporate into their model the impact of higher mortgage rates on the numbers in 2027. Where do you expect mortgage to end up as a percentage of revenue for the company? Like in total company, USIS, EWS, do we have some kind of, like, a range or at least a rough estimate that you could give us so that we can kind of sensitize our numbers starting from that when we think about 2027?

Yeah. Go ahead, John, please.

You are not going to give 2027 guidance and certainly not going to give specifics around revenue or percentage of revenue. But the reason why in the script, we tried to give some perspective on originations and transaction levels is to allow you to try to do that math on your own. And as we said, we expect that you are gonna see mortgage originations activity to kinda decline high single digit percentage year on year to the extent that current mortgage run rates stay the way they are as we go through all of 2027. With the bulk of that impact happening in the first 8 months. So if. As you will remember, fourth quarter of 25 was a strong mortgage period. First quarter of 26 was a strong period as well. So you will see significant impacts. Obviously, you are seeing it in the fourth quarter. You would see it in the first quarter. It starts to mitigate a little bit in the second. And then obviously substantially in the third given what happened this quarter. What you are seeing in the fourth quarter of this year.

And again, just to be clear, you know, what we always do and what we have done in this in this scenario modeling for the fourth quarter and to give you some visibility for 2027 is we have taken current run rates. Obviously, they are depressed over the last 8 weeks and we can only assume that they are going to continue at that level until you know, inflation comes under control and perhaps the Middle East conflict is resolved and then, you know, rates moderate some. I had in my comments the fact that even if this lower level, there is still mortgage activity happening. You know, it is it is down meaningful. it is down over 50% from what we would call normal levels but there is still mortgage activity happening every day, every week that you know, is building that pipeline going forward. We are now up to 17 million mortgages, over 6%. And I think, as you know, it takes a quarter point, 50 basis point you know, change in rates, and you open up a refi opportunity for that population. it is hard to see when that is going to happen with what is happening today. But it is gonna happen. You know, it is just a matter of when that time frame is, and you know, as we move forward, that $17 million. 17 million you know, household number or mortgage number is only gonna get larger. Thank you.

Next question today is coming from Jason Haas from Wells Fargo. Your line is now live.

Hey, good morning and thanks for taking my question. Can I just confirm and a follow-up and a response to prior question? Did you see that you would expect the EWS business to get back to the, long term framework next year. Did I. Did I hear that correctly? Was that to the overall EWS Yeah.

We did not give we did not give long. We did not give, 2027 guidance, and I our intention to give 2027 guidance. I think the question was around the performance of the business and its momentum as we finish the year, which we are super pleased with, and, you know, the business is performing well, and you have seen, you know, kind of improvements on a quarter over quarter basis from second to third quarter that we are pleased with. And we have provided some information on 2027 that you can do your own math on. You know, on some of the setup, like, you know, the government contracts that we have signed that, you know, were substantially incremental in 2027 versus 2020 that, you know, give you some visibility.

Oh, okay. Great. Thanks for clarifying that. And then, yes, maybe just a follow-up on government. So the 15 million of new government bookings in 3Q was very strong. Are you able give us any expectation for I know in there if there was any sort of big wins or not. If that is, like, the right framework to think about what we could see as well in 4 q. Then for government, do you expect that revenue to continue to accelerate in 4q again in 2027?

I think you had said that previously. But 2 q and 3 q were very strong quarters for the government team in terms of signings and renewals. And part of that is just based on the timing of when state budgets move. Right? So fourth quarter tends to be much smaller. In terms of that type of activity. As Mark said, we are doing a lot with the federal government and other opportunities. Does not mean the selling activity changes in any way. But in terms of likely signings, you know, the strongest periods you tend to see are really 2 q and 3 q. A little bit in 1 q, but really 2 q and 3 q tend to be the strongest just based on the way state budget cycles run.

Thank you. Next question today is from Faiza Alwy from Deutsche Bank. Your line is now live.

Yes. Hi, thank you. So just to follow-up on that government question. How much of the $150 million of the new business are you expecting to realize in revenues this year?

Yeah. I think we have said a couple times that the new contract signings are principally 27% kind of impact with some of that benefit in the fourth quarter. Some of it was in the third quarter, quite small. But you know, substantially all of that is in 2027.

We saw some of the contracts that we talked about in the second quarter start to monetize in the third quarter and many of them are monetizing in the fourth.

Okay. Got it. Okay. And then 1 to ask about, you know, Vantage adoption. Adoption and you talked about moving to a paid model. So just wanna understand, you know, the strategy there. Are you going to continue to offer, Vantage for free when someone is buying the FICO score from you? Or is, is that strategy changing? And then I think you talked about $35 million annualized margin upside. Just curious, what does that represent? At this point?

Yeah. So your last question, and we have been clear about that, is we wanted to calculate for you if there was full Vantage conversion of all the FICO scores. Obviously, we do not make any money today when we sell a FICO score. that is 0 margin. Which is to pass through to FICO. And if we sell the Vantage, we make a dollar on each score. So, you know, that at current you know, kind of run rate levels, if we move everyone, our piece of that would be margin upside of in the 30 million to $40 million range. Obviously, that is going to take time, but we see some real momentum there. We did we did announce at NBA last week, and I shared on that call this morning that we are planning to keep our $1 Vantage score at $1 through 2028. To give our customers more confidence in visibility, you know, around, you know, Vantage pricing versus FICO pricing, you know, as they make that decision to, you know, use the VantageScore. And, yes, we are still offering the free VantageScore with every paid FICO score, in order to drive adoption. But you remember, you know, for customers, you are not getting any savings because you are still paying you know, the $10 plus for the FICO score, you versus the dollar that is available if you move to Vantage. And that is why we said on the call, I think we have 200 customers, smaller, that have moved to the dollar VantageScore exclusively because they are getting better score performance. And in the marketing side of the origination, in prequal, and they are getting the big cost savings. And you know, you have seen press releases from, you know, some of the larger mortgage lenders, and you know, we are talking to them also. You know, they are well aware of the, you know, huge cost savings that they have because, as you know, 7. 6 out of 8. 6 out of 10, 7 out of 10, 8 out of 10 mortgages do not close, and that is a COGS for them. So the ability to do that pre qual or pre application with a advantage score for a dollar is a huge savings. it is you know, in the neighborhood between a credit file and the VantageScore versus a credit file versus the FICO score, it is like a 45% savings, you know, for the originator, and that is just a lot of savings. That also passes through the consumer. Because the consumer pays for the TriMerge. It closing, and at a $1 score, you know, there is a meaningful savings for the consumer also. So there is a lot of momentum around that conversion, and we expect that to pick up in the fourth quarter. And then move forward in 2027. You know, when we expect FHA and VA to move to adopting Vantage, you know, inside of their process We both, know, we understand around January 1. Thank you.

Next question today is coming from Manav Patnaik from Barclays. Your line is now live.

Hi, this is David Amin on for Manav. Just wanted to talk about the event that FHFA decides to go from TriMerge, I know you talked about my merge, but, ultimately, if it goes to a single file, would the economics hold true in your view that lenders will still want to pull all 3 And would it still be manageable And outside of that, I understand the twin indicator and the NC Plus, but is there any other way you can differentiate the credit file outside of that?

First, to be clear, you know, our knowledge, and maybe you have different knowledge, but everything we know is the FHFA is not made a decision to go to bimerge. Obviously, they have talked about it. There was a press article, I believe, in Bloomberg that said they were expecting an announcement from FHFA, and that knowledge, has not happened yet. But that is why we decided to, you know, put some, you know, framework in our discussion this morning about what a potential impact would be to Equifax, and we view it as manageable We have already talked on the call this morning about why we think TriMerge is important. And, you know, to your question, you know, our expectation is it would not be a requirement to go to a buy or single merge. It would be an option you know, for the lender, and the lender would make the decision about you know, what they wanna do in their marketing process and underwriting process you know, to make sure that they are managing their marketing funnel, they are approving more consumers, they are providing the right price to the consumer around what price the interest rate is on the loan. And then as you point out, you know, we have a lot of, you advantages at Equifax, you know, in a bimerge, you know, world for FHFA loans. Because of the unique solutions we deliver with Twin. The Twin attributes, the Twin data that we have in the credit file, the NCP attributes that we are offering at no charge, also the fact that we own a TriMerge business, you know, where we go to market. So, you know, we would obviously take advantage of that in how we deliver our credit file, you know, in the marketplace So I think it is 1 that our intention this morning was really just to size the impact and then we will be ready to respond, you know, if in fact FHFA goes down the path. But as you point out, our expectation is the lender would make that decision of about, you know, what they wanna do as far as credit files that they are pulling. Thank you.

And then on government, I know you mentioned some of the contract wins have been towards subscription based As you are having more conversations with these state counterparts, Are they leaning more towards subscription based contracts? And if not, is that something you think the government is headed towards?

Yeah. it is 1 that we started, you know, deploying commercially a couple of years ago. it is clearly something that many of our customers like the idea of the certainty of a subscription. And as you know, all budgets are complex, whether you are in government side or if you are in the commercial side. In the case of government, they are more complex because they generally have to get at the state or local level funding for expenditures for projects, you know, from their legislature. So know, having the ability to have some more certainty around, you know, during that you know, fiscal year, what the spend is gonna be on our solution, you know, is positive. So we have seen a growing trend there, but we still offer you know, both, and we wanna be flexible with our customers, you know, around helping them, you know, utilize our solution. We wanna drive, you know, penetration into that big TAM. You know, as a reminder, it is a $5 billion TAM. Know, we have got less than, you know, 20% of it. You know? So there is, you know, a lot of manual verifications that are still being done that are opportunities for us. So we wanna you know, be responsive and flexible commercially to help our customers adopt our solution. Thank you.

Next question today is coming from Andrew Nicholas from William Blair. Your line is now live.

Hi, thank you and good morning. Want to dig in a little bit further into talent momentum think you mentioned mid single digit growth for underlying growth, but outperformance relative to that market is holding very strong, if not accelerating. So I was hoping you could spend a bit more time on kind of what is driving increased penetration, what how much of that outperformance is new products, And any other color on kind of market makeup there and your evolution as key provider to the space?

Yeah, we are pleased with the performance. Strong performance last year. Also it is big TAM it is 1 where we deliver a lot of value in kind of our core solution about verifying past I think, as you know, the APRIS incarceration data acquisition that we did several years ago has been a very positive 1 for us. that is used very broadly in background screens, doing that incarceration check, and we have rolled out new products there and are driving penetration You know, the TAM is quite large here also You know, that is a multibillion dollar, $5 billion TAM. You know? And, again, here we have, again, less than 15% of the of the market is using our solution a penetration standpoint. So, you know, our team at EWS has a lot of penetration opportunities. And then as you point out, you know, we have been rolling out new products in the education space, in the employee verification space. We now have an hourly solution where there is less data required to verify pass employment. Education solutions that we are rolling out, you know, every year we take price up, we will do that again. On January 1 in the talent vertical, so when we look forward we are still benefiting from the price we did early this year in for 2026. So a lot of really strong performance. And then, of course, record growth When we grow records, we have higher hit rates. You know, we can deliver, you know, more complete information on that know, employment background. So multifaceted and, you know, strong in a big TAM by the workforce solutions team. We have also expanded into health care. We have launched more and broader health care into the talent vertical as well, which we think is also gonna help drive long term growth. Great.

Very helpful. And then for my follow-up, I wanted to ask on income and employment verification. Think last month a competitor of yours announced an integration with a large partner of yours. Why to see if you had any thoughts on what that means for your business, but maybe more broadly, you could touch on kind of your conviction in having exclusive relationships on that front or maybe, again, like, the resilience of your model to competition? Thank you.

Yes, we view that more as a 1 off that was really driven by some decisions that they wanted to make about you know, how they go to market. You know, we saw a very strong relationship with that customer. We expect that continued going forward. And when we look broadly, we are very pleased with our record growth. We deliver a lot of value to those partners that you know, we work with in the in the payroll, HR software, you know, pension, benefits administrator space, there is just a lot of continued momentum there. You know, our benefits are the scale of, you know, our distribution. Is very, very large. Know, we are. We have connections, you know, in the mortgage, auto, card, p loan, background screening. Government social service space that, you know, are really second to none. So you know, when it comes to you know, our ability to you know, grow our business and then share in a rev share with them, you know, we just have very substantial advantage there, which is a positive in those partnerships that we have. We also invest heavily in our technology and in our product capabilities So, when you think about us rolling out new solutions in all of our verticals, those benefit those partnerships. Which are really valuable to us. So we have a lot of confidence in our ability to continue to grow our records. We have a lot of confidence in our ability to deliver value to our partners in those partner relationships, and we do not expect that to change going forward. Thank you.

Our next question today is coming from Ashish Sabadra from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now live.

Thanks for taking my question. I just had a question on the EWS margins. The guidance implies a step down for 4Q, which I believe John you attributed to mortgage weakness. We think about some of the puts and takes, obviously, you talked a lot about the AI benefit, but how should we think about AWS margins going forward even with some mortgage pressure there? Thanks.

Yeah. We are very pleased with the EWS margins. They are very, very high and attractive and our intention is to continue to invest in the business because of the high growth it delivers as well as the high margins that it generates. But at the same time make sure that we are deploying everything we have around productivity and AI productivity and operating leverage not only at AWS, but at our other businesses, and you know, we are seeing very positive, you know, benefits the EWS team as they deploy AI productivity in their operation centers. They have very large operation centers in our employer business. You know, we have the same kind of call centers, although not as large. Both for consumers, for employees, you know, of our contributors, and also for our b to b customers that we are deploying AI in. You know, and we. And then our technology operation in EWS, same thing. So our goal is to continue to maintain those very attractive 50 plus percent EBITDA margins going forward by the strong operating leverage that comes from their top line growth and also the deployment of AI productivity.

that is very helpful color. And then maybe just on mortgage and I know this question was asked before, but as we think about like that, high single digit, mostly on the first 8 months of 2027, Are there certain nuances by quarter that we need to be cognizant of? Any particular color that you can provide there will be helpful. Thank you.

Yes. So the way as Mark described it, what we do is we just apply normal seasonality to our expectations for the next year because we do not have any basis to think of anything else. However, you obviously know what happened in 2026. So in 2026, the first quarter, was a pretty good mortgage quarter. Right? And until rates started increasing in Mark. Right? And then second quarter, weakened, but was certainly better than what we saw in the third and the fourth quarter this year. So on a year over year basis, it would indicate that the largest impact year over year is likely gonna be in the first half. But, again, that is just based on us using normal seasonality in 2027 because that is what we know today. Thank you.

Next question is coming Curtis Nagle from Bank of America. Your line is now live.

Great. Thanks so much for taking the question. Apologies if I missed this, just any color you could provide on the verifier government mortgage expectations for 4Q? We expect something similar to 3Q in terms of year over year growth? Does it accelerate? Given Mark your point some more new development. But the business coming in, just a little more color if you could in terms of what is contemplated in the guide.

Yeah. So we do not give specific guidance going forward by segment or line of business, right? So, think all we have said is that we are happy with the pace at which we have added new clients and new customers in government that we have seen a fair number of the contracts we signed in the second quarter start to monetize and others would start to monetize in the fourth quarter. So we are very happy with that. And then more broadly, when we talked about what we are seeing in the economy, indicated that we are seeing some weakening in talent. And we are seeing some weakening, just in industry run rates around auto and FI, right, and more heavily around things that are more interest rate sensitive. So what we said is we are looking at those. But as you are thinking about fourth quarter, those are some of the trends that we are thinking about as we look through the next quarter and into next year.

Okay. Let me go to shift it to somewhat of a 2 part advantage. Just guess outside of the 3 large lenders that are currently originating, I think you are mostly originating. what is your sense in terms of preparedness for the rest of the industry in terms of them turning on, advantage to originate? And I guess, much do you think Mark alluded to this, the move to the unified grid potentially shifts more volume to Vantage?

Yeah. I think the industry has been preparing for quite some time. I think as you know it is a year ago Julia when the FHFA first announced that they were going to adopt Vantage. Then in April, they actually turned it on. In that time frame, a lot of the technical work, process work has been completed. Know, in some cases, there is still testing happening, which is why you know, last year, we started offering the free VantageScore you know, so they could, you know, adopt it and really process through their workflows, you know, both scores. So you know, I think substantially, the industry is pretty well prepared, and the fact that they made the decision a few weeks ago to you know, normalize the LLPA tables You know, I think that opens up, and we have heard a lot of feedback from our customers that they plan to really start ramping their Vantage adoption because of the big cost savings that come with it. And, you know, that is the numbers are just quite substantial. For the industry and consumers, it is $1 billion that is hard to not focus on, particularly in this mortgage environment where the whole industry is extremely pressured, you know, by the lower activity. So, you know, we see all of our customers you know, really moving to implementation mode, so we would expect to see that adoption to grow in the fourth quarter and then continue to accelerate in 2027. And really, really good progress in the third quarter also with Connector and Technology Partners. Enabling Vantage. So there was there was a substantial change in the third quarter, which we think has a lot of momentum and is continuing. You.

Our next question today is coming from Surinder Thind from Jefferies. Your line is now live.

Thank you. Mark, just 1 question here. Can you talk about just the way that lenders are behaving or they are thinking about the consumer and their willingness to market, to spend, to originate Obviously, some sensitivity around rates and consumer behavior, but is there a delay effect that we should be thinking about? Or are there certain metrics that really need to degrade before we see any material change in lender behavior?

Yeah. I think you have seen our USI's business, which is probably the right place to look, and even EWS in our consumer finance or auto card P loan business, performed very well. Our DDM business, you know, which where some of this activity would be, was strong, but principally around, you know, marketing activities. So we have not seen real uptick in what you would typically see when investors are more nervous about the economic conditions, you know, where they are doing more portfolio management reviews. That has not happened. And the real indicator I have been around consumer finance for decades. And, you know, the real indicator is, you know, unemployment. And it is still quite strong, meaning employment is still quite strong. Employment is quite low. When people are working, you know, while they can be pressured, and they are, in many income demographics because of what is happening with inflation in oil, they still manage to pay their bills. And I think we have seen, you know, a lot of the bank earnings last week were very strong in their consumer businesses, meaning they are originating you know, and operating in a quite normal way. So we do not we do not see it a change happening in that, and we do not expect. You know, it is hard to see 1 happening in kind of the medium term as we move through the quarter and into the early parts of 2027, that you just do not see that on the horizon as long as unemployment stays low. Thank you.

Next question is coming from Kyle Peterson from Needham and Company. Your line is now live.

Great. Good morning. Thank you guys for taking the questions. I want to dig a little more into talent. So I guess, I am looking at the numbers there, it actually looks like you guys had a really strong quarter in talent, and you guys, I think, are being a little conservative there in the outlook. So I guess, like, is there kind of how the quarter trended or recent weeks based on some of the data you guys are seeing, or are you guys getting shared? Just any additional color there to kind of explain the divergence and maybe a little more cautious outlook than I would expect will be super helpful.

Start with third quarter was extremely good, strongest we have seen in a long time. Right? So And I think what we have talked about is we expect the talent business to continue to perform very well. But performing consistently at the level we saw in the third quarter given maybe some weakening in hiring in general. Is probably something that would be difficult to deliver consistently. So we think talent is gonna perform very well. They had a great third quarter. Expect them to continue to perform well. But we are seeing. We did see some weakening in the overall hiring market. And specifically as it related to white collar hiring as we move through the quarter, and we are just reflecting that. In our in our in our guidance in general and in our commentary.

Okay. Okay. That is really helpful, and appreciate the additional color. And then I wanted to switch over to the international business, particularly Latin America. You know, looks like you guys had a really nice quarter there. You know, especially on a constant currency basis. So wanted to see, you know, where is most of that growth coming from? Are you guys seeing more of this from some of the larger banks? Or know, are you guys seeing better adoption with the fintechs? I know fintechs in that region have been gaining a lot of share. So where are you guys seeing the most success there? I think that will be really good for everyone to hear.

Yeah. it is fairly broad based. You know? Brazil which is Boa Vista, as you know, where we acquired that business, a little over 3 years ago, performing very well. And we think gaining some share. They are they are doing very well with fintechs and also know, picking up some business with the larger banks. So performing well there. Broadly, I think, you point out, in Latin America, you know, fintech is quite large. And is performing well, and we are well positioned with them. So we. We have seen kind of broad performance in Chile and Peru and Argentina, Ecuador, some of the other markets in Central America. Where we are performing well. And then as I commented on the you know, the call earlier, we are super energized to get the Círculo deal closed That business is also performing well. We do not own it yet. But we will soon. And that business has been up strong double digit actually growing faster than the rest of Latin America and the fastest growing know, kinda credit bureau business in Mexico because they were really focused on fintechs. You know, they have got a very strong market position and actually do not do as much as, you know, we see an opportunity to do more business with the banks, where the competitor plays, but the FinTech growth has been super positive And running all the plays you would expect us to run, we are now cloud native in Latin America. I think that is a big deal. We just completed that, you know, in the quarter. So having that you know, complete. Most of the countries have been complete for, you know, months and years. But that allows the team to fully focus on growth. We are know, rolling out the. A lot of the new AI you know, powered new products. I think that is benefiting us. Some of the new scores that bring more data in is really powering, you know, their business down there. And you know, we are we are pleased with, you know, how it is performing. Thank you.

Our next question today coming from Simon Klintch from Rothschild and Company Redburn. Your line is now live.

Thanks. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to start with the U. B2B online business. I just wanted to give some color as to the trajectory of growth there. We have seen some kind of pickup here to I think mid single digit last quarter, 4% this quarter. Versus low single digits before. But I was wondering if we could square sort of how to think about this going forward, given your comments around some of the slowing we have seen in those key markets. And if there is any sort of onetime or unusual impacts that we need to think about as well for this Thanks.

Yes. Nothing 1 time, but you are seeing some of the benefits. As you remember, the USIS was kind of our last large U. S. Business, a very large U. S. Business complete the cloud. So they are, you know, kind of 24 months into that post cloud mode, and they have really accelerated their new product rollouts. You know, their vitality index is, you know, up above north of 10% now, which is really great news. It was not for years. It was kind of in mid single digits. You know, kinda when they were doing the cloud transformation. So that is benefiting them. Know, commercially. Some of the new solutions, you know, we talked about, you know, twin indicator, you know, that we are clearly. it is been a lot of focus on in the mortgage space. But we are rolling it out in auto card and P loan. Offering that as a. As an addition to the credit file you know, at no cost in order to drive share gains. So we are starting to see some traction there. it is been quite modest because we are early days in the rollout, but we would expect you know, that to be a positive for us going forward. So I would think about you know, commercial execution. We have got a new leader that we are really energized about. David Smith, who is leading the business now. And he is got his feet on the ground and really focusing on commercial execution. And then the new product rollouts, you know, we expect to continue to be a positive for them in the quarter. it is to finish the year, but more importantly, in 2027 and beyond.

Okay. that is beautiful. Thank you. And just changing tack, going back to Vantage. I was wondering if you could just help us think about so we have gone to a unified LLPA grid for Vantage and FICOs. that is viewed as a real beneficiary for VantageScore. What if we move to an actual bespoke or specific LLPA grid for Vantage, which is not just a 1 to 1 map with FICO. How does that impact the likelihood of lenders using the product or any of those dynamics? Any sort of color you can give around that would be useful.

Sure. I would expect that to happen. Know, I think it is just a matter of time, when they get to that stage that they would have, you know, really an LLPA table that is specific to FICO classic they have today, and then they would have it more specific to 10 t. But remember, the credit score in a mortgage underwriting process is really only used in the pre application prequalification process in order to give an indicator to the consumer before the credit data is used, which is really what is used in underwriting, actually calculates the actual underwriting and then the actual price that consumer is gonna be offered. What the originator does is use the credit score early in the process before they submit the application to the agencies, and we are talking about, you know, GSE, FHA, type loans, they use that credit score really just as an indicator from those tables to tell the consumer that, hey, based on your credit score that we are looking at today, this is the kind of price that you will have. And what they wanna do is make sure that they are using the most accurate complete information. And today, you know, I think it is widely viewed that Vantage 4.0 includes more data than FICO classic, you know, so it provides a more complete picture on the consumer. So, you know, that is a reason. 10T will close some of that gap once it gets approved by the agency. But that is only an indicator And the fact that price is you know, dramatically different of a dollar versus 10 plus You know, when you are a mortgage originator, you know, you really have to focus on both the performance of the score in that pre qual process and the cost to actually use it. And it is just so substantially different You know, our expectation is that is gonna be a real determinant and we are seeing it, with the mortgage originators in using the VantageScore because it just delivers a lot more value you know, for the service. And just, you know, as a reminder, once the application goes in, the score is really not used in the underwriting process, The credit data is used in the TriMerge report, including a report from Equifax, to do that underwriting and to confirm the actual interest rate that is gonna be offered on that mortgage, based on the consumer's the applicants', you know, credit data, you know, not the credit score. So, you know, we think there is gonna be a lot of momentum to utilize the VantageScore because of the value it delivers, you know, both on the performance, but also on the cost to use it. Thank you.

Our next question today is coming from Ryan Griffin from BMO Capital Your line is now live.

Hey, thank you so much. Just 1 for me. I wanted to ask about the new mortgage score select I know that is still early innings, but what behavioral patterns have you seen from the lenders? That have worked on that workflow thus far? Thank you.

Yes. Well, we launched that solution specifically based on lender input. Right. So we are expecting we will see adoption. We think it creates a lot of flexibility for lenders as they are going through the approval process, so that they could move forward and use a VantageScore And to the extent they see some reason through the closing process, like, for instance, today with a VA loan, that they need to pull a FICO score as well. That it gives them the flexibility to do that later. At a lower cost, right, without having to repurchase the credit file. So we think it is it is, in response to industry demand, and something that will be adopted, we think adopted significantly. And we think it should also help promote movement to VantageScore more quickly. Thank you.

Next question is coming from Andy Grubler from BNP Paribas. Your line is now live.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Firstly, just to go back to John's comment from earlier about seeing some slowing in FICO and auto volumes. In the latter part of the quarter. Can you quantify at all to what extent that slowed? And has that continued into the early part of Q4? Thank you.

Yes. I think we quantified that the mortgage market clearly slowed in the third quarter and that impacted us in the neighborhood of $20 million negative in the third quarter. And then we also sized for you what the impact at current run rates, which is the only thing we can run off, the impact would be in the fourth quarter. Is that what your question is about?

Well, I think I No. No.

I said auto and FI, not that is what I think we heard FICO. But the. No. If we saw some slowing, We did not say it was substantial, but we did see some slowing since it occurred We reflected in what we are seeing in the fourth quarter, and we just wanted to share with you that was something we were starting to see as you are considering the fourth quarter as well. that is all.

Okay. Thank you. And then just a follow-up on the government vertical. So you had a very good quarter again in terms of growth. There has been some change in competition in that market with a relatively new entrant in Trove winning a couple at least a couple of state contracts. Are you seeing the dynamics in that market change at all? Is there space for all of you given the size of the TAM or anything else we should consider about kind of the changing competitive environment? Thank you.

Yes. There have been other competitors around for quite some time. I think you should talk to them about how large their contracts are or are not, our understanding is they are, you know, quite small. But, obviously, we focus on, competitors that are trying to enter the space. As you point out, it is a very big TAM. there is a lot of space to participate. You know, we think we have, you know, a very, very strong offering you know, with the instant solution, you know, from Equifax, through the twin dataset, you know, that is extremely competitive, and we have been investing in new solutions particularly around consumer consented data where we do not have all the records to have an integrated solution. And what we hear from our customers is they you know, really want an integrated solution, you know, because they think about the first place they wanna check, know, is the Twin database because it has such large coverage. And then integrate into, you know, solutions like our consumer consented, which we signed a couple of states on it. So big space, we think we have a strong position know, and we are going to continue to invest to make sure we maintain that.

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next question is coming from Kevin McVeigh from UBS. Your line is now live.

Great. Thanks so much. Great to see the cost momentum. I can you help us understand what drove the upsize, the $150 million up from 75 on the AI. And then I think you talked and maybe it is in nuances, just cost management versus AI driven cost efficiencies. Maybe just dimensionalize what those 2 things are. But I guess, first, just the $150 million up from $75 million and then, the cost management versus AI efficiency.

I think as you know, we announced the 75 back in February. We doubled that in Julia to 75 because of the momentum we have seen on AI deployment. Our early AI deployment, think about the latter half of 25 inside of Equifax, was in operations. You know, most companies start there in call centers and document processing centers are kinda purpose, you know, built for that. You know, I talked a bunch about on the call already this morning that we think the fact we invested so heavily in our tech stack you know, over the last 5 years, you know, and that is obviously behind us now that we are cloud complete and in the cloud, but that positioned us to really effectively deploy AI, you know, we think better than others. And so the 2075 was, you know, our first step of sharing with you what we are doing internally you know, as far as some of the AI productivity you know, going forward. And then, you know, we have just seen kinda rapid adoption. The big know, change between February and Julia and now is that, you know, the deployment of AI, you know, in Equifax in technology, that is our largest team, As you know, we are a data analytics technology company. You know, but using AI for coding, new products, and capabilities is seen, you know, really rapid adoption and deployment by our teams. which is super positive. And then we are also seeing, you know, in finance, HR, legal, you know, AI being deployed there to drive efficiencies. And I said it on the prepared comments earlier this morning, that we are still early innings on this. I think that is what is exciting for me and John and the rest of the Equifax team is that we just see a lot of potential going forward. So when we think about that translating into operating margin dollars and margin rate, Obviously, we have a metric we use as our margin rate. We started doing it ex FICO, so it is really more clear around the fact that FICO, you know, distorts that in some way because we pass through the FICO score with no margin on it, you know, and we set a goal you know, in our long term framework to grow our margin rate 50 basis points per year, We set a goal early in the year to do 75, and as you know, we have out outperformed it in first, second and third quarter. Is why we now raised it to 100 basis points. So inside of that 100 basis points of margin expansion, the biggest lever we have is operating leverage. If our revenue's growing and our costs are growing slower than the than the revenue, you get operating leverage that drives margin expansion. So that is, you know, the way I think about it, we think about it, that kind of 50 basis points in our long term framework is the operating leverage that we should get from our 7% to 10% you know, long term organic growth rate. You know? So that is clearly a base part of how we think about the business going forward and that becomes free cash flow and you know, in that free cash flow, it becomes substantially ends up in buyback because that is where the incremental, you know, cash is gonna go. And then the new gear you know, the new lever for us in operating margin expansion is really the deployment of AI across Equifax. You know, we branded it internally as AI for EFX. We have it as 1 of our strategic priorities that we set out in January. Was not only to deploy AI for our products, models, and scores to drive our top line, but also to really aggressively deploy AI across Equifax to drive speed, to drive efficiencies, to drive capacity, and also to drive productivity. So, you know, that was the 150 million that we laid out in July. We were clear that was going to be a multiyear impact. it is going to impact both OpEx and CapEx because a lot of our technology costs get capitalized. So, as we have efficiencies there, there will be savings, but also CapEx. So we are really energized around our ability to deploy AI, and I think we are 1 of the few info services stocks out there that have put a marker out fairly early in the AI journey around, you know, the benefits that we expect to get from it, which is, again, that 150 million. And then, obviously, it is showing up in our P&L in 2026, you know, and, you know, with our ability to increase our operating margin rate guidance for the year, you know, while having the significant mortgage top line pressure. We think shows a lot to us as well as to our investors that you know, there is, you know, some real, positive change happening in, you know, we run our business internally from an efficiency and AI productivity standpoint.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank Next question is coming from Scott Wirtzl from Wolfe Research. Your line is now live.

Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just 2 on the government side of things. Wonder if you can talk about maybe how much of the new ACV that you are seeing is being driven by some of these new products that you have that introduced into the ecosystem? And then just a clarification on the renewal ACV, does that include any sort of like expansion with current customers or pricing increases? Or is that just a straight renewal of existing services? Thanks.

Yeah. So on your second question, it would be substantially renewal of existing business, but there is always some element of price in a lot of the conversations. there is also the element of we add new solutions in those renewals. And then the new ACV we think about as being kinda new customers, and there is clearly. When you think about what is driving the bulk of that revenue, I would think about it as our core products, you know, about verifying income, you know, that we have been doing for, you know, a lot of years. But there is an element of the new solutions we have talked about over the last 6, 9, 12, 18 months that we are adding into the market, like Continuous Evaluation, for our customers and you know, the complete income you know, adding that as a solution where we are adding some of the consumer consented stuff. So know, it is you know, the bulk of that new ACV would be in what I would call our core solutions. And just really penetrating the TAM. I think a lot of us forget meaning our investor base, that we have a big business. Know, obviously, and we have a big business that is growing but we operate in a TAM that is substantially manual. When you think about the $5 billion TAM and the 4 plus billion of that TAM that we do not participate in today, you know, that states that is agencies, that is federal government, that is local you know, local government, you know, kind of social services that are being done principally manually. So that is the opportunity for us to really deliver you know, the real value we deliver in our salute. Core solution, which is speed of social service delivery, know, caseworker productivity, You know, think about a $5.07, $10 transaction with Equifax versus, you know, a caseworker who is paid $30 an hour with benefits, working on it, and then obviously the huge integrity side you know, and there is been increased focus around, you know, I attacking the way the federal government frames the 180 billion of improper payments that happened and the roughly trillion dollars of social service delivery. So we just have strong momentum in our pipelines and really a good runway going forward to continue to penetrate into that Big TAM.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is coming from Kelsey Xu from Autonomous Research. Your line is now live.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. What is your expectation around paid VantageScore adoption in the mortgage vertical in the medium term? And any updates on FICO 10T implementation timeline for the GSE loans and how that might change the competitive landscape between FICO and VantageScore? Thanks a lot.

Yeah. So the paid Vantage is still fairly small. I think we have been clear about that. The free vantage is very high. And we think about that as an indicator of the industry's focus on you know, preparing to move to full advantage. And then when we talk to our customers, and some of them put out press releases, you can check on that. there is clearly a lot of focus on taking advantage of the huge cost savings that come with Vantage. With regards to 10T, you know, adoption and activation, you know, you should talk to FICO. You know, we are not involved in that. You know, that is something FICO is working on. You know, suspect there will be a point in time where it will be adopted, but we are not close enough to know, you know, what is happening or not happening in that space We do believe that, you know, 10 t will close what we view as a gap between FICO classic and Vantage 4.0 from a performance standpoint. I think it is well understood in the industry that Vantage 4.0 includes more data, has more trended data, and is provides a more complete picture on the consumer around what their credit worthiness is. So I think that is well understood. Our view is that 10T will close some of that, then you have got the challenge of, you know, that is at least currently priced at over $10 a score versus badges at a buck. You know, that is a massive delta that, you know, we think advantages. You know, Vantage even when 10 t's in the marketplace.

Got it. Very helpful. Director Pulte also alluded to releasing the GSE credit scores to the marketplace. Is that something you have been working with agency on? And how are you thinking about having Fannie score and Freddie score potentially competing with VantageScore in the marketplace?

Yeah. I think you would have to talk FHFA about their plans on that. While we collaborate very closely with them because they are a close partner, I would not want to comment on what they are or not going to do around their own credit scores. We know that they I think it is well understood that the way the underwriting process works is that after the application goes in, the score VantageScore or FICO classic score is not used and that underwriting process. The credit date is used in that process, and they have a underwriting process that is very robust and very complex and very sophisticated. That ingests all of the trade lines from all 3 credit reports in order to do their underwriting because, remember, they own the loan at closing, and that includes, you know, some element of score calculation that they use internally but you would have to talk to them about, you know, what they think they might wanna do with that you know, in the marketplace. Thank you.

Our next question today coming from Craig Huber from Huber Research Partners. Your line is now live.

Great. Thank you. My first question is if we go back to October 2022, when the Biden-Harris administration proposed going to bi-merge, And then given all the pressure etcetera, nothing happened on that front through the rest of the administration, roughly 27 months. I guess my question to you is, what is changed in the marketplace out there that even if Pulte wants to go that route here, besides the fact we have a different administration, what is changed now that it would actually get implemented? Obviously, you talked about the treasury being against it, lot of congressmen being against it, regulatory folks underneath Pulte have been against it. Much of the industry against it, etcetera. But what is changed that actually could get implemented this time if he wants to go that way?

Yes. Craig, as a reminder, when you go back to the Biden administration, what they were they did a study and they got industry inputs. So it was a very formal process They reached out to the industry. We provided inputs. I think our competitors did. I am sure FICO did, and, you know, and the industry participants did. And they really asked to do a study on 2 things. Number 1, moving from tri merge to bimeerge. And at the same time, they proposed going to Vantage and FICO score. You know, meaning requiring both scores be used. There was a lot of input from the industry. I think universally, the industry input was a move from trimerge to bimeerge, you know, was not a good thing for the consumer. Was not going to provide a complete picture on the consumer, was gonna result you know, in situations where consumers are not approved or was gonna result in situations where consumers are paying a higher interest rate because you are not having the complete picture on them. And then it was also going to result in a you know, a less accurate, less complete underwriting because you are not gonna have the trade lines, you know, including some of the negative trade lines that I could consumer, so there is a safety and soundness impact. And at the same time, you know, there was feedback from the industry that understands how the process works well that was no value in having 2 credit scores used in really the prequal process. And then know, that is really how that unfolded. But that same sentiment around, tri-merge to bi-merge has not changed today in. From my perspective, from what I know in my communications and our communications, you know, around the value. The. There the facts are the facts. You know, because of our contributory system in The United States is voluntary, to the 3 credit bureaus, not every financial and contributes every trade line to all 3 credit bureaus. And that results in meaningful differences between the 3 credit reports And when you are talking about something as substantial as a home mortgage, that is the largest transaction any homeowner does, consumer does, it can have significant impacts you know, on whether they are approved what the price they pay if you do not have all the data on that consumer. So I think that is well understood. And then the safety and soundness is crystal clear. You know, if you are gonna exclude data, that is okay if it is positive data. But if it is negative data, and you do not know when you are only doing a bimerge, whether you are getting all of the complete information on that consumer and whether there is negative data out there that means that loan is riskier, you know, that is something that is on the shoulders of the federal government. You know, and I remind investors, you know, when I am in 1 on 1 meetings often that some of the most sophisticated non mortgage lenders pull TriMerge for all of the reasons I described. They own the loan, it is on their balance sheet, they want to approve every consumer They want to give the consumer the right price meaning the price that they qualify for based on all of their trade data, and that is why even in nonmortgage where there is no requirement, the most sophisticated lenders will pull a TriMerge because they wanna get that complete picture on approvals, to approve more. And they also wanna have the complete picture on the loans they put on their balance sheet.

I appreciate that. I mean, I think what you say makes an awful lot of sense. You have said that many times over the years. Publicly and I am sure privately as well to the regulators. My question further is here, you have got Pulte, Director Pulte out there being very upset about what he perceives as the price to value. For credit reports, but also the price increases as he goes on and on about, now versus, say, last year. Can you just quantify for us how much apples to apples, if you are willing to apples to apples, how much your credit file price has gone up this year versus last year? This year versus Yes. 2 years ago, however you wanna talk about it. But just what. Why is he so upset about the price increase from his vantage point? Thank you.

Well, I think you would have to talk to him. We talked to him, lots of the industry participants too. We have got a lot of respect for director Pulte, and, you know, we have applauded his decision, which was really, you know, groundbreaking along with secretary Turner at FHA, you know, to drive adoption advantage to drive some score competition. You know, from our perspective, you know, the. I think we all know, you know, what is happened with FICO pricing over the last 5 years, and I think that is been the principal focus of the regulators around the impact that is had on the mortgage industry. As well as the impact that is had on consumers. Because remember, ultimately, consumers pay for their credit reports at closing and, you know, so they have been bearing this cost of you know, the rapid increase of the of the FICO score. You know, our pricing is, you know, year over year is actually down on the credit file. You know, we, you know, have been. You know, tried to be very supportive of the industry given the pressures that they are under and also supporting consumers. And I think the VantageScore itself, the fact that we are being super responsible and super supportive of the industry and consumers with the $1 pricing. And as I said this morning, last week, we announced to our customers we are gonna extend that not only through 2027 but through 2028, meaning keeping it flat at a buck so we can provide that support in a probably the most challenging mortgage environment that we seen in decades, you know, and support consumers, you know, who are struggling with the cost of homeownership, this provides clearly recognized a very small benefit, but a positive for them of the dollar versus 10 And remember, we launched pre-qual and pre-approval products which are at much lower prices, which give our customers and mortgage underwriters the ability to manage their credit costs as they see fit. Right?

Thank you. Question is coming from Craig Moore from B. Riley Securities. Your line is now live.

Yes. Hi, thanks. Just a quick, I wanted to follow-up on the international question. What are some of the trends you are seeing in APAC that drove the sharp acceleration in the third quarter? And where is the largest opportunity for international growth in 2027?

Yes, great questions. We are really pleased with the Australia performance. I think a piece of that is that they are really moving well down the path of their cloud completion. that is the last place that we have to finish. But know, I think they have got, you know, a lot of that complete, which is allowing them to more broadly focus on innovation and new products, Our leader, Mel Cochran, is doing a great job there in the marketplace. We have had some share gains versus our competitors. In that marketplace, which has really been a positive. And you know, we expect, you know, that, be a solid grower for us as we move forward in the future. Your question around where do we expect to see growth kind of as we look forward internationally. Latin America is clearly gonna be the fastest growing geography for us. Obviously a big place, and we have got big positions. And remember, we are, you know, we entered Brazil 3 years ago with the Boa Vista acquisition. A leader down there is doing a great job driving innovation and growth. Enrique Morales is doing a terrific job, you know, of really driving the growth in that business. In Brazil, we are super energized to get Círculo closed. That business has been growing very kind of over 20% so far in 2020. So really a strong performance there. So that will be a positive contributor as we get it closed in the fourth quarter as we move into 2027. And then in the more I would call it traditional markets for us that are more developed markets, maybe is a better term, of like Canada and UK, We are looking for those businesses, some of the innovation new products that they have been in the marketplace. We are seeing progress around share gains and performance in those markets, so we expect them to be positive for growth as we look forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is coming from Owen Lau from Clear Street. Your line is now live.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. So going back to the LLPA question, if there are essentially 2 different LLPA grids how will this impact the like, the back end securitization part How to harmonize the whole value chain? And also, ultimately, how would it impact which score to use? Thank you.

Yes. From our perspective, the credit score is not a big determinant in capital markets. it is the underwriting that takes place by the mortgage originator. And by banks and financial institutions and agencies, you know, whether it is Fannie, Freddie or FHA. it is their underwriting process. Process, really supports the capital markets, and that underwriting process that includes robust data today, the TriMerge, and making sure that got the complete picture on the consumer. that is what drives the capital markets. The change in the LLPA tables you know, are important. The change that was made a few weeks ago by FHFA you know, was important to, you know, really, you know, put on parity, you know, Vantage versus FICO. You know, when they go to, you know, more custom LLPA tables, I do not think that has an impact on Vantage FICO. The real impact is going to be price. And with the significant price advantage that Vantage has, You know, it is gonna be a score that the industry is gonna wanna use just because you know, the. A lot of those, you know, prequal loans do not move to application. And that becomes a COGS form. And at a dollar versus 10 plus, you know, there is just meaningful savings. that is the billion dollars we talk about. You know, and in this environment and likely an environment in 2027 where the industry is gonna be challenged until rates come down, this kind of cost productivity for the mortgage industry is significant. So, you know, we think there is a lot of momentum, you know, around Vantage conversion as we move through the quarter and into next year.

Got it. And then on the VantageScore adoption, can you please talk about the use cases of pulling both VantageScore and FICO at this point? I know many of them can get Vantage for free. But I think they cannot use 2 different scores for the same loan in origination. So how are lenders actually leveraging Vantage when they have FICO? Thank you.

Yeah, remember that this was a massive change for the industry for 25 plus years, the only score that was used was 1, which was the FICO score and their systems, their processes. Think about the workflows that happen inside of a financial institution like a mortgage originator, those all had to be changed and rebuilt to have the ability to you know, absorb a second score and have it work through their process. So that is why, you know, last summer, you know, when FHFA and director Pulte announced that they were going to allow Vantage to be used in the in the Fannie and Freddie underwriting process, you know, the industry had to start investing in technology changes and process flow changes in order to make that happen. that is a big project. Took a lot of time it is, you know, substantially complete now. And that is why we are. We made the decision last year to offer the free you know, VantageScore with every paid FICO score so our customers could start you know, absorbing it you know, flowing it through. They could see, you know, the score difference on a consumer, you know, which is very insignificant between Vantage and FICO and also work. You know, update their workflows so they could actually, you know, make that decision. And, you know, that process is, you know, happening. And as I said, we have got 200 lenders that are understandably smaller lenders, but the big ones, you know, are. Have built their process built their workflows, and, you know, everything we hear from them they are gonna start moving to the paid VantageScore to get that substantial cost savings versus the $10 plus FICO score going forward. We rolled out a new solution last week because we heard from lenders that they may want to for example, pull the VantageScore first for a dollar and then on certain consumers, they may decide, well, I am also gonna pull the FICO score. And they wanted to have a process to be able to do that you know, so we built that technology, you know, in order to bring that through From my perspective and our perspective, what we know with the industry, that will be more an anomaly than the norm that because remember, if you pull Vantage at a buck and then FICO at 10-plus, you know, that is $11 you have got invested You know, if the $1 vantage serves your purpose from a marketing standpoint, that is better for the consumer because they end up ultimately paying for it, and then it is also better for the lender because not every loan closes. So, you know, there is just a huge advantage with the $1 Vantage Core. Thank you.

Our final question today is coming from George Tong from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now live.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. I wanted to go back to the government business. Beyond the 150 million of new state business already signed, you mentioned active discussions around the new Medicaid work requirements. Can you frame the potential incremental opportunity there and where those states are in the decision and contracting process?

Yeah. it is a great question, George, and it is not only the work requirements, it is the new SNAP requirements. Where they have the error rate audit requirements from the federal government. If they are over the error rate, then they are going have to start paying for some of the SNAP benefits. Going forward. So those are all changes that would not place a week. A year ago, July, with o b 3 that, you know, are driving kinda new product rollouts by us, but also, you know, engagement, you know, by the states as the federal government intended. They wanted to have more robust verification of income to try to bring down that 180 billion of improper payments. So that is a part of the pipeline. Going forward. And as I said earlier in 1 of the questions, our kind of our core solutions. Again, as a reminder, I know you know this, George, because you know us well, You know, when you think about a $5 billion TAM, you know, we are less than 20% of that today. You know, meaning less than half of the states use us for Medicaid. Less than half of the states use us for SNAP. Less than half of the states use us for a lot of the other benefits. That white space, which we think about as new customers and new states and new agencies we wanna do business with, you know, are doing their verifications principally manual today. And that is our opportunity. And that is big part of our pipeline. It always has been. So that has not changed with OB 3 and it is just. OB 3 has just increased the commercial discussions, the frequency of them, the level of them, but the core value prop we have has not changed, and it is really around delivering that value of speed of social service delivery with an instant verification the caseworker productivity that delivers from, you know, our solution, you know, versus doing it manually, and then, of course, the integrity that comes you know, in using our verified data to make sure that, you know, the applicant, you know, should be receiving the benefits or if they have the benefits, you know, to make sure they should still be getting them. And know, as you know, the 180 billion is a, you know, is a lot of opportunity for the federal government working through the states to reduce the cost of social services for those that you know, currently do not qualify.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. We reached the end of our question and answer session. I would like to turn floor back over to Trevor Burns for any further closing comments.

Thanks for everybody today. If you have any follow-up please talk to me and Molly and we will be available. Thank you.

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.