Equifax executives won’t get bonuses after data breach
Equifax apologized again for its massive data breach in a Friday morning earnings call but also touted plans to build a new credit monitoring tool to give consumers more control over their data.
Chief executive Paulino do Rego Barros Jr. outlined plans to rebuild trust after saying that Equifax’s senior leadership team will forgo “incentive compensation” — essentially, bonuses — for 2017.
He added that Equifax will release a free tool to allow anyone to lock their account to prevent others from viewing credit data or opening accounts in their name. (A credit lock, however, affords users fewer legal rights than a credit freeze, even in the event of a hack.) That tool is set to launch at the end of January.
He added that Equifax is working with other companies to create something similar for the whole industry. “We believe the time is right for an industrywide solution that provides consumers a way to substantially improve visibility and control to personal credit data for free, for life,” he said.
Equifax currently has a credit monitoring service that it’s offering free to all 145.5 million consumers affected by the breach; registration remains open through Jan. 31. The service allows users to monitor and even freeze their accounts. The firm’s chief financial officer, John W. Gamble Jr., said during the earnings call that approximately 1.5 percent to 2 percent of all Equifax files now have a lock or freeze placed on them.
Overall, Equifax has said that roughly 30 million people have visited the website it set up to inform consumers about the breach. But it has not reached out to individuals affected by the breach personally — leaving questions about how many people could still be unaware that their sensitive information was stolen, as Equifax tries to move on.
A recent survey from financial site CreditCards. com found that 71 million American adults hadn’t heard anything about the breach more than a month after it was first announced, despite heavy news coverage.
Barros has declined to say whether Equifax will reach out to individuals by mail or email. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., who helped introduce a consumer protection bill called the Freedom from Equifax Exploitation Act after the breach, sent a letter Thursday requesting that the credit bureau do so.
“It is deeply concerning that only slightly more than 20 percent of affected individuals have successfully used this tool, which you said you have been promoting heavily through social and other media,” she said in the letter, which is posted publicly. “[It] remains quite possible that millions of individuals do not know for certain if their information was exposed.”
NEW YORK — J.C. Penney delivered some encouraging news: It reported a solid rise in sales at established stores Friday, reversing four straight quarters of declines. It also posted a smaller-thanexpected loss for the third quarter, all news that sent its shares soaring 15 percent.
The news stanched, at least for a moment, an extended selloff in company shares, which accelerated last month when the Plano, Texas-based chain warned that it would be forced to liquidate poorselling merchandise. Shares, which have tumbled 62 percent this year, had touched an all-time low.
Initiatives to spiff up its clothing lines to fuel sales are “giving us confidence that our overall strategy and transformation is beginning to take hold,” CEO Marvin Ellison said in a release Friday. He noted that by selling off unwanted merchandise, the company is entering the holiday season with less of a backlog so it can add fresh items to its floors.
Penney’s performance was a bright spot in a mixed bag of results from department stores, which released their reports this week. Yet more challenges lie ahead with the critical holiday shopping season.
Macy’s reported on Thursday that sales fell at established stores in the third quarter, marking the 12th straight quarter of declines, as it had a hard time pulling shoppers through its doors.
Kohl’s reported a drop in quarterly profit Thursday, though it saw rising sales in the quarter. Even Nordstrom, which announced results after the bell on Thursday, saw a key sales measure fall and trimmed its outlook.
Like many retailers, department stores have wrestled with weak sales as customers go online. Department stores, which are heavily dependent on clothing sales, are seeing more competition there as Amazon expands further into fashion and off-price chains like T.J. Maxx add more stores.