First Orion, TNS and TransUnion Partnership Helps Standardize Enterprise Vetting and End-to-End Call Authentication Across Branded Calling Ecosystem

Partnership helps enterprises improve call experience while protecting consumers from fraud

CHICAGO, RESTON, Va. and NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — May 22, 2024 — First Orion, Transaction Network Services (TNS) and TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) announced their partnership—in effect since 2022— will deliver an estimated five billion branded business calls by the end of 2024. Through direct network integration with leading U.S. wireless carriers, the partnership offers enterprises a proven cross-carrier solution for business vetting, number verification, end-to-end call authentication and call branding with rich call content.

The solution helps enterprises improve customer engagement, while protecting consumers from robocalls, call spoofing and fraud. In addition, this partnership has helped enable milestones that continue to set a strong foundation for future branded call enhancements, including:

• Branded calling adoption by over 4,000 U.S. businesses, including 10% of Fortune 500 companies
• Over 1.5 billion calls branded in 2024 to date
• Business number registration includes more than 180,000 businesses and 17 million phone numbers
• Implementation of standards and best practices that ensure participants in the branded calling ecosystem deliver scalable solutions
• Adoption of solutions to prevent spoofed calls from reaching consumers
• Out-of-band call authentication across the three major mobile networks, enhancing call security with call authentication and rich call content

“Missed connections have a negative impact on businesses and consumers, and consumers are demanding more protection against fraud,” said Joe Stinziano, president and CEO at First Orion. “Through this partnership, we’ve been able to offer businesses the expertise and solutions they need to help protect consumers and restore trust and transparency in the phone call.”

“Businesses need to protect their customers and don’t want their brand reputation damaged by spoofed calls,” said Dennis Randolph, president of TNS Communications Market and chief financial officer for TNS. “Not only does branded calling and spoof protection help modernize the voice channel, customers are also more likely to trust the call which has a direct impact on conversion rates and ROI. By leveraging Out-of-Band capability APIs, only verified calls receive the full enterprise branded call treatment.”

“To really have a significant reduction in robocalls, call spoofing and fraud, we had to provide end-to-end call authentication,” said James Garvert, senior vice president of TruContact Communications Solutions at TransUnion. “Our network forensics indicated that only about 35% of business calls to consumers were being authenticated end-to-end with STIR/SHAKEN. Now, through this partnership, along with rich content and spoof protection solutions, we can help stop spoofed calls before they reach the customer.”

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently reported that phone channel fraud cost consumers an average of $1,480 per instance in 2023. Consumers are demanding solutions that address this growing problem, and enterprises are responding. The adoption of branded calling in the U.S. grew more than seven-fold between 2021-2023.

About First Orion
Since 2008, First Orion has transformed the phone call experience for businesses, carriers and consumers through its industry-leading communication branding and protection solutions. As the market leader in branded calling, First Orion is a trusted partner to Fortune 500 companies and the largest U.S. mobile carriers. The global telecommunications solutions provider helps businesses generate more revenue, increase efficiency, and improve the customer experience by empowering them to brand their phone calls with their name, logo and reason for calling. First Orion also provides the industry’s most secure calling experience and best-in-class analytics for call program optimization. For more information, visit firstorion.com.

About Transaction Network Services (TNS)
TNS, a market leader in call identification and robocall mitigation, provides an end-to-end ecosystem for protecting and restoring trust in voice calling. TNS addresses the full needs of wireless and wireline operators globally with TNS Call Guardian®, the industry-leading call analytics solution that protects subscribers from high risk and nuisance robocalls. In addition, its Enterprise product suite, including TNS Enterprise Authentication and Spoof Protection and TNS Enterprise Branded Calling, is taking the next step in enriching consumer engagement, making the voice channel an integral part of an omnichannel customer experience program. TNS analyzes over 1.5 billion call events across more than 500 operators every single day, enabling enterprises to protect their brand and consumers, and carriers to identify more unwanted robocalls. For additional information visit: https://tnsi.com/resource-center/communications/.

About TransUnion (NYSE: TRU)
TransUnion is a global information and insights company with over 13,000 associates operating in more than 30 countries. We make trust possible by ensuring each person is reliably represented in the marketplace. We do this with a Tru™ picture of each person: an actionable view of consumers, stewarded with care. Through our acquisitions and technology investments we have developed innovative solutions that extend beyond our strong foundation in core credit into areas such as marketing, fraud, risk and advanced analytics. As a result, consumers and businesses can transact with confidence and achieve great things. We call this Information for Good^® — and it leads to economic opportunity, great experiences and personal empowerment for millions of people around the world. https://www.transunion.com/business  Learn more about TransUnion Branded Call Display (BCD).

Media/PR Contacts:
First Orion Media Relations
media@firstorion.com

TNS Media Relations
Brian Lustig
202-836-9112
tns@bluetext.com

TransUnion Media Relations
Dave Blumberg
david.blumberg@transunion.com
312-972-6646