FF News Tattoo Studio: Experian Beyond Credit – A Data-First Company Building Identity at Scale

At the FF News Tattoo Studio at Fintech Talents 2025, Adam Payne discusses how he has been working at Experian for around 15 years, and his route in was simple: a friend working there passed on his CV, he interviewed, and got the job. What’s kept Payne at Experian is the variety; as a product manager, he meets lots of different people, works across different challenges, and ends up at events like this, even if being filmed in a “tattoo studio” setup at 6am wasn’t exactly expected.

Payne also clears up a common assumption: while Experian is best known for credit, Payne describes it as a data-first company with far more going on than one product. His own focus is digital identity, which is why he’s at Sibos 2025 and camped out near the identity content. Payne says Experian is investing heavily in identity and positions it as one of the UK’s biggest providers, working with customers, industry partners, and government to help shape what comes next.

On the practical question of improving a credit score, Experian keeps it grounded. If your behaviour is consistent and you look reliable, not suddenly taking on lots of credit in a short period, your rating tends to rise. Meanwhile, if your activity looks inconsistent or risky, it can drop.

In plain terms, it’s about proving you’re dependable to do business with.

The conversation then zooms out, prompted by M-Pesa and the idea that payments aren’t just convenience as they create a record you can borrow against. Asked whether AI and new data points will deliver a “perfect” credit scoring system, Experian suggests the challenge is being solved differently depending on local conditions. The UK has its own constraints, but finance is becoming more interconnected, pushing the industry toward interoperable standards rather than isolated approaches.

Experian ends on the bigger shift: your device and digital identity are now central and proving you are who you say you are is foundational. The next step is whether identity can support a broader, user-controlled record, information you hold yourself and choose to share when you want.