ATLANTA, February 17, 1999 -- Equifax today announced its latest addition to its arsenal of automated risk management tools, the Equifax Risk Score - CARcredit '99, which is designed specifically to assist all automobile finance lenders in the evaluation and assessment of potential risk of auto loan and lease applicants.

CARcredit '99, first introduced as CarCredit Score in 1996, is a more refined risk predictor that rank-orders the probability of 60+ day delinquency, charge-off and bankruptcy among potential automotive trade customers during a 24 month period following scoring. The improved tool is the result of detailed analysis of thousands of aggregate consumer credit files, each having one or more automotive trade lines.

Thomas J. Blischok, Equifax executive vice president, Knowledge Engineering, said, "Equifax's industry-specific risk models are setting the standard for state-of-the-art predictive tools. CARcredit '99 increases approval rates through superior segmentation and evaluation of individual accounts with higher levels of risk."

The score produced represents the percent of likelihood that an applicant will not go 60+ days past due in the next 24 months. It evaluates both prime and non-prime markets and can target profitable consumer segments more effectively through unique evaluation of consumer attributes such as utilization rate, length of credit history and presence of delinquencies.

As the automotive lending industry continues to innovate and grow, Equifax has created a new division to provide the industry with the specialized tools it needs to manage risk. Wendell M. Tarkenton, senior vice president, Equifax Automotive Solutions, said, "Our team, including several veterans of the automotive industry, is dedicated to developing new industry-specific products like CARcredit '99 and to tailoring our current products and services to the needs of our automotive customers."

CARcredit '99 is available now. For more information, contact Marguerite Watanabe at 404-885-8765.

EQUIFAX (NYSE: EFX) is a worldwide leader in shaping global commerce by bringing buyers and sellers together through its information, transaction processing, consulting and knowledge-based businesses. Equifax serves the banking, financial, retail, credit card, telecommunications/utilities, transportation and healthcare industries and government. Founded in 1899, Atlanta-based Equifax today has 14,000 employees in 18 countries and sales in more than 45 countries. Revenues for the year ended December 31, 1998, were more than $1.6 billion.