Dun and Bradstreet (D&B) Canada Reaches a new Milestone in Credit Information:
Over 10 Million Canadian Payment Experiences are Now Available to the Credit Community worldwide.
Mississauga, Ontario, Oct 8, 2008 - Today marks a milestone in the Canadian credit industry. For the first time ever, there are now over 10 million unique payment experiences in the D&B database available to businesses world-wide that are inquiring on the payment habits of Canadian companies.
When asked about the significance of this, Drew Doherty, Vice President of Marketing and Customer Experience explained, “Having this many payment experiences in one source enables businesses to use D&B information to make more informed credit decisions on each and every company they choose to do business with. Companies that appropriately manage their risk are able to lower their Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and end up with less bad debt, increasing their profitability. With the economic uncertainty that Canadian businesses are currently facing, this improvement couldn’t have come at a better time for the credit community.”
Each line of trade that appears on a D&B report is a unique payment experience that has occurred between the business in question and one of their suppliers. The amount of credit extended, amount still owing and the speed in which it was paid is captured. Combined, these experiences play a large role in determining the overall credit profile of a business and subsequently, how much financing or credit a business will be able to attain. This new milestone in payment experiences means that the information on D&B reports is more robust and complete than ever before.
In addition to providing a line-by-line history into how a business has been paying their bills, payment experiences are critical to D&B reports because they form the well known Paydex® index that is assigned to each business and quickly indicates their overall payment behaviour in just one figure. Even D&B’s most sophisticated scores that can predict the likelihood of business failure (Financial Stress Score®) or delinquency in paying bills (Commercial Credit Score®) become even more accurate by having these additional payment experiences incorporated into their formulation.
D&B collects payment experiences through its team of dedicated Trade Acquisition Specialists who reach out to members of the credit community to identify businesses across all sectors that are willing to anonymously share their accounts receivable experiences. In exchange, they receive information back on their accounts that allows them to better understand their customers’ changing payment behaviors over time. Participants enjoy this program due to the mutually beneficial relationship it creates at no additional cost. This program, now in its 20th year, is named DunTrade and acts as a major pipeline that powers the D&B database with fresh payment experiences every day. The more participants they gather, the greater the number of companies D&B will have with payment experiences associated to them.
“I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made to shore up the number of payment experiences we have in our database. This represents a big win for our customers, especially those that have needs to research small businesses that are typically harder to find information on.” Said Donna Copelli, Director of D&B’s Canadian Database.
About The D&B Companies of Canada Ltd.
D&B - Dun & Bradstreet, is the world's leading provider of business information and insight, helping companies to Decide with Confidence® for over 167 years. D&B's global commercial database contains more than 140 million business records, including information on 1.5 million Canadian businesses. The D&B database is enhanced by D&B’s proprietary DUNSRight® Data Quality Process, which transforms the enormous amount of data they collect daily into decision-ready insight. Through the D&B Worldwide Network – an unrivaled alliance of leading business information providers around the world – customers gain access to the world's largest and highest quality global, commercial business information. D&B is traded on the NYSE: DNB.
Learn more about D&B at dnb.ca or call 1.800.INFO.DNB.
Media Contact:
Drew Doherty
VP Marketing and Customer Experience
905.568.6339
dohertyd@dnb.com
