Earnings Labs

Equifax Inc. (EFX)

Q1 2018 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 26, 2018

$172.42

+1.08%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Equifax First Quarter 2018 Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Trevor Burns. Please go ahead, sir.

Trevor Burns

Management

Thanks and good morning. Welcome to today's conference call. I'm Trevor Burns, Investor Relations. With me today are Mark Begor, Chief Executive Officer; Paulino Barros; John Gamble, Chief Financial Officer; and Jeff Dodge, Investor Relations. Today's call is being recorded. An archive of the recording will be available later today in the Investor Relations section in the About Equifax tab of our Web site at www.equifax.com. During this call, we will be making certain forward-looking statements to help you understand Equifax and its business environment. These statements involve a number of risk factors, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. Certain risk factors inherent in our business are set forth in our filings with the SEC, including our 2017 Form 10-K and subsequent filings. Also, we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EPS attributable to Equifax and adjusted EBITDA, which will be adjusted for certain items that affect the comparability of the underlying operational performance. For the first quarter of 2017, adjusted EPS attributable to Equifax excludes, among other things, acquisition-related amortization expense, and the income tax effects of stock awards recognized upon vesting or settlement. Adjusted EPS attributable to Equifax also excludes certain costs related to the cybersecurity incident. These include cost to investigate the cybersecurity incident, legal and professional services and a contingent liability for costs associated with providing free credit file monitoring and identity theft protection services to consumers. Included with cost related to the cybersecurity incident and therefore excluded from adjusted EPS attributable to Equifax of the incremental non-recurring project cost designed to enhance IT and data security. This includes projects to implement systems and processes to enhance our IT and data security infrastructure, as well as projects to replace and substantially consolidated our global networking systems, as well as the cost to manage these projects. These projects that will transform our IT infrastructure and further enhance our IT and data security are expected to occur throughout 2018 and 2019. Adjusted EBITDA is defined at net income attributable to Equifax adding back interest expense net of interest income, depreciation and amortization, income tax expense, and also as is the case for adjusted EPS, excluding certain one-time items including costs related to the cyber security incident. These non-GAAP measures are detailed in reconciliation tables, which are included with our earnings release and are also posted on our Web site. In the Form 10-Q, to be filed later today, we will disclose the future losses from litigation or reasonably possible but not yet estimable at this early stage in the proceedings. Now, I'd like to turn it over to Mark.

Mark Begor

Management

Thanks, Trevor, and good morning everyone. I think as all of you know, I joined Equifax last week, so I'm into week two here at Equifax. It's exciting for me to join my first Equifax earnings call. And most importantly, take the helm of Equifax at such a pivotal time in our history. I want to start my comments by assuring consumers and customers of my absolute commitment, as well as our team's absolute commitment, to making Equifax a leader in IT and data security, to protect the sensitive consumer and customer data with which we have been entrusted, and to empower individuals to understand and manage personal data. I also want to take a minute to thank Paulino for the outstanding job he did as interim CEO and for continuing to be a part of our leadership team into early 2019. During Paulino's time as CEO Equifax has made significant progress in four areas of focus outlined as critical to our success in transforming Equifax following the cybersecurity incident. And those four elements are: Number one, to protect and empower consumers. Number two, become an industry leader in data security and identity protection while transforming our IT infrastructure and data security to industry leadership levels. John will talk about the sizable investments in this are in the first quarter and in 2018. Third, rebuild confidence with customers and partners, and I'll talk a little bit about our progress there. And fourth, respond to and work with the government and other regulatory bodies as they investigate the incident. In the fourth quarter earnings call, in early March, Paulino and John covered in detail our plans and progress across these areas. Ensuring continued consistent execution in this transformation in this massive infrastructure investment that we're making is critical to the success…

John Gamble

Management

Thanks, Mark and good morning everyone. As before I'll generally be referring to the financial results from continuing operations represented on a GAAP basis. For 2018 additional items excluded from our non-GAAP results or the onetime costs related to the cybersecurity incident. We'll provide the details on those items you can consider at your analysis. In total in 1Q, '18 we incurred non-recurring cost related to the cybersecurity incident of $79 million. These have been partly offset by insurance recoveries of $10 million resulting in a net non-recurring charge of $69 million. The non-recurring charges excluded from adjusted EBITDA margin and adjusted EPS. $29 million of gross costs were generally for legal fees and other professional services principally related to outstanding litigation and government investigations related to the cybersecurity incident, $46 million were generally for one time incremental project and other costs incurred to implement our IT and data security plans improve our infrastructure and develop and launch the lock-and-alert free service launched in 1Q, '18. Going forward, all operating costs related to lock-and-alert will be included in our ongoing P&L. $4 million in accrued and incurred gross expenses related to the trust at IT premier service we offered free to all citizens. Give up cost were offset by about $10 million of insurance recoveries committed in 1Q, '18. Total non-recurring in onetime thing incremental project and other gross costs incurred since 3Q, '17 related to the cybersecurity incident are $243 million. We have a $125 million of cybersecurity insurance under our E&L policy against which we received commitments to pay $60 million in recoveries today which partially offsets the cost reference above. We continue to expect to made claims the fully utilized policy. For Equifax in 1Q, '18 as Mark indicated revenue of $866 million was up 4% from…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And we will take our first question from Manav Patnaik with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Manav Patnaik

Analyst

Thank you and welcome to the call, Mark. My first question, Mark, just in your initial assessment, I know you've talked about the commitment to security and infrastructure and there's clearly been a lot of spend in that area. I guess, how would you describe where you are in that process, early mid stages or how long do you think this continues?

Mark Begor

Management

Yes, Manav, good morning, and thanks for your comments. I'm only two weeks in so it's hard for me to give a detailed assessment. I'll ask John, maybe to weigh in also. But my look is that there's a lot of work that's been done in the last six seven months by the team, so we're making good progress. But I would also say it's still early days, there's still a lot of work to do. As you know, our new system has only been on the ground for less than 60 days, he is a really strong talent, he's bringing some new people in and I guess, in summary I would just, say early days. John, anything to add to that? We've got a lot of work to do in the rest of this year?

John Gamble

Management

Absolutely. And we've indicated that the spend of the MD activities will run at least through 2019 and obviously as we move through 2018, as we have greater visibility, we'll update people on how we're doing.

Mark Begor

Management

But just maybe to close on that, I hope you feel and others on the phone feel our commitment to this. This is a very large effort by the team, it's a massive undertaking and it's one that we're extremely serious about and we're committed to industry leadership around data security and it will go through for sure for the rest of this year.

Manav Patnaik

Analyst

Got it. And then John, I think you went through it a little quickly, but just on the global consumer breakout, I think that was the area where it felt like you beat the expectations the most, but -- so I think you said that direct, which was a little over 30% of the mix was down 21%, and then did you say that the rest of the piece was up slightly and then I think in there you threw in something was up middle single digits as well. Can you just help me with that and what -- how much ID watchdog contributed to that?

John Gamble

Management

Sure. So we said our partner and reseller, which is about 40% as ECS revenue, we said it was up mid single-digits. And our non-consumer direct revenue was up slightly. And that's really Canada and the U.K. and that was Canada growing and the U.K. declining and then ID watchdog contributed just under $5 million.

Manav Patnaik

Analyst

Okay. All right. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from David Togut with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Rayna Kumar

Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Good morning, this is Rayna Kumar for David Togut. In terms of some of the government contracts that were delayed in previous quarters, can you just flush out how some of those conversations are going and if you can just provide us some milestones we can track so we can get a better idea of how your progress is with those contracts.

John Gamble

Management

Yes, so I think we haven't actually spoken specifically about government contracts, but we've indicated rather that in general we continue to work with customers and that there have been some deferrals of agreements where we execute in our CMS business and our financial marketing services business. But as we talked about last quarter we said anything that's really been deferred since the cyber security incident which was in September we would assume as lost. And then going forward what we're doing is just working on winning new agreements with new customers. And as Mark walked you through, we think we're making very good progress there in moving our customers to the point of considering new transactions with us and new products with us. So what we provided was some discussion around the impacts of the cyber security incident last year. But I don't think we specifically talked about government.

Rayna Kumar

Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Got it. One of your competitors is starting to sell trended data outside of mortgage and into the auto and credit card verticals; can you just discuss your plans with trended data?

John Gamble

Management

Sure. Absolutely. So we consider trended data to be a critical part of our NPI process. We're seeing trended data growing in our business as well. We do think there's applications in auto, we do think there's applications in credit card, and trended data, quite honestly, is something we'll also start to apply around the world. So we would expect that we will see growth from those areas as we move through the future as well.

Rayna Kumar

Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Okay. And one final question…

John Gamble

Management

And we did just launch a commercial trended score this quarter.

Rayna Kumar

Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

That's very helpful. One final question from me, when do you expect to restart share buyback?

John Gamble

Management

Yes, so we talked a little bit about this last quarter, right, so until we have clarity around the outcome of the consumer and other litigation and class action litigation, we'll likely not be executing share repurchases until we have a good understanding of what that liability may look like.

Q - Rayna Kuma

Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

All right. We'll move to our next question, will come from Andrew Steinerman with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Andrew Steinerman

Analyst

Welcome, Mark. John, you just mentioned that the IT spend will run at least, "At least through 2019," and then the last quarter the description was heavy lifting in IT spend and data security in 2018 and 2019, so my question is does Equifax have a full sense of what the total spend will be to IT and data security to build an industry leading system?

Mark Begor

Management

I'll take the first crack at that and John should jump in with more color probably, but Andrew, great to connect with you here for the first time. The answer is no. We don't have that full visibility yet, we're working very hard to do that. The team has -- I would characterize is a pretty good visibility for what we're planning to do in 2018 and I think in the last quarter, John, we talked about that and decided that for you. We haven't really gone beyond '18 yet, but my expectation is that there will be work that will go beyond '18 to complete our data security and infrastructure rebuild and as we get into the second half of the year, I would hope we can give you some visibility around that.

Andrew Steinerman

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll move next to George Mihalos with Cowen. Please go ahead.

George Mihalos

Analyst

Good morning guys, and Mark, welcome aboard.

Mark Begor

Management

Thanks, George.

George Mihalos

Analyst

Just wanted to go back to one of your comments in your script around -- it sounds like the tenor of conversations with customers is improving. Are you seeing more inquiries though from non-traditional customers as well, basically people that have not been using Equifax in the past that are willing to have conversations around potentially buying some services?

Mark Begor

Management

That's when I got lost. John, maybe can give you a little color on it. I'd give you some color on the customer meetings that I've been in is that customers want to understand deeply our investments and our pace around our data security upgrades. And as you know we've got a myriad of communication processes with the [indiscernible] customers, individual meetings with senior executives of our customers. So I would characterize the dialog that they appreciate the transparency, they expect the transparency. I think they're pleased with the scale of our investment and our commitment to it, how serious we're taking it and the comments that we've made about industry leadership around data security. At the same time, my meetings with customers is that they also want to get back to the normal dialogs that we had pre the incident around growth, around new products, around NPI, so my interactions have been with existing customers, I don't know, John any color about beyond that?

John Gamble

Management

Sure. Some of the new products we talked about last year a little bit like for example, InstaTouch, is starting to attract interaction for us with different parts of our existing customers as well as potentially with new customers. Also we've increased our activity in terms of pursuing fintech in the fintech markets. Some of it because of the new products we have offered and has been also further reasons. So we think that's an expansion of the focus that we have had probably over the past six to eight months.

George Mihalos

Analyst

Okay, that's helpful. And then John, just as a quick follow-up, the Q2 guide on the revenue side suggests -- call it 3% revenue growth down a little bit from the 4% in the first quarter. Anything that particularly will be slowing down or is it just sort of the tougher comp in USIS that's impacting the number?

John Gamble

Management

Generally, what should be occurring as you go up -- we're going to see GCS performance weaken, so that will be the thing that probably drives the impact more than anything else if we move through the rest of the year. We would expect you'll see the decline in consumer lightly accelerate.

George Mihalos

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Brett Huff with Stephens Inc. Please go ahead.

Brett Huff

Analyst

Good morning guys and Mark welcome to the call.

Mark Begor

Management

Thanks, Brett.

Brett Huff

Analyst

Two quick questions, one sort of a big picture one, we've kind of talked around it. But on GCS or the direct to consumer business, we've gotten a lot of questions on the fate of that. I know Mark, you're in the middle of that decision strategically, but could you just outline sort of the puts and takes or the main issues that you all are weighing as you consider that and then I have one follow-up.

Mark Begor

Management

Yes, I'll start on that one and ask John to jump in too. For me it's early days on that. I've only been here for a little better than a week and a half and had some dialogs around it. Really what I want to take a hard look at is what are the opportunities? There's going to be real balance in the consumer space around a lot of the activities that we're going to deliver to consumers for free and that's something we're committed to and we're committed to giving consumers more control in access around their data and really looking at what are some of the paid services that we may offer in the future and value-added nature. So that's really the kind of calculus for me. I think I mentioned my background is kind of B2C from the synchrony updates and I got a real appreciation for both the protection of consumer data as well as a kind of value-added services you could add, you can deliver to consumers but it's going to take the better part of the second and the third quarter, I would think for us to come as a conclusions about a strategy there that we feel good about. We are going to be thoughtful about it and we will share that when we complete that analysis.

John Gamble

Management

And as Mark covered, we are also relooking at to state basically the consumer direct market broadly because that market has been changing as we know over the past several years and how much of that market we believe is continue, going to be delivered direct or through resellers and through the premium models somewhat as Mark, referenced. So we look at the market in general to see what we think has happened, we did that a couple of years ago, we are doing that again now, and then, also obviously specifically whether or not we think we have anything differentiate that would let us participate well, if we think that market is still going to, is still going to be a growing opportunity. So, still more work to do.

Brett Huff

Analyst

Thanks. It's helpful. And then, the second question is on the NPI, I know this is one of the key hallmarks of Equifax and something you guys continue do really well, part of your culture. But my understanding was, there was some shift in talent from some of the NPI, sort of projects to the cybersecurity incident issues, am I understanding that right and if so how do we think about the ongoing allocation of resources to NPI, how much talent will that -- will the cyber issues kind of heat up for long you know, that sort of negatively impact NPI in the near term?

Mark Begor

Management

Yes, it's a great question. This one is on my mind just a short time I've been here. First is I think you properly point out NPI has been a real strength of Equifax as it's you want to think that many things that attracted to be the business there. They rigor their processes around partnering with customers around bringing new products to market and we got a long history of doing that and as you also pointed out there we have had and would some resources on the technology side and other areas working on the data security breach and infrastructure we built, but we are working hard, so we fill those resources on the NPI side. So we expect there will be some pressure there. My goal is to work hard to mitigate that with the addition of resources and focus around NPI because it's important to us and important to our customers going forward. I think it's probably hard to articulate any kind of metrics around that plus there the first quarter was encouraging on the NPIs that we did bring to market versus our expectation. So even six plus months into - since the incident, we are bringing products to market but it will be real focus of ours to continue to resource that and make sure that momentum continues.

Brett Huff

Analyst

Great. Thank you.

John Gamble

Management

Thank you Mark and very confirmation progress with customer. So, one of the re-launching products, and then, obviously one of the impact as well as how rapidly we are able to turn them to revenue and so it's very important that we improve the engagement with customer as we are, so that we can get back to a more normal type with customer acceptance with the new products even after their launch. So, certainly an impact on NPI this year for those two reasons.

Brett Huff

Analyst

Great. I appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Andrew Jeffrey with SunTrust. Please go ahead.

Andrew Jeffrey

Analyst

Hi, good morning guys. I appreciate, you taking the call. Look forward to working with Mark.

Mark Begor

Management

Welcome.

Andrew Jeffrey

Analyst

Have you think about this re-platform and obviously there are a lot of costs in management focus headed to it. But as you get past the technology investment and the security investment, have you started to think about how the new platform and the new delivery motion could benefit the long-term growth and competitive positioning of Equifax's business?

Mark Begor

Management

Yes, I think it's a great question. Just wondered on my mind being nine days in here at Equifax and just wondered we are the heat of it obviously ramping up some projects around data security of our infrastructure rebuild. Some of the dialogue I had with the team of goals I'd like to get on the other side of this investment is speed of market with the investments we are making will allow us to bring products to market or quickly an ability to have higher dependability and liability of our infrastructure on the other side. So my goal is that after the market I hope it will improve our cost structure as we make some of these investments and first and foremost we are going to have a data infrastructure and a data security infrastructure that will be industry leading and that should position us well competitively going forward.

Andrew Jeffrey

Analyst

Okay, and will you anticipate to the extent that our benefits associated with have been talking about this time next year, is that a reasonable expectation?

Mark Begor

Management

At this time, next year I think having some visibility on our side in years around that, I think it's very, very simple and that's a great goal.

Andrew Jeffrey

Analyst

Okay, and as a follow-up, with regard to the U.K. and TDX in particular John it sounds like some of the demand softness is transitory. Can you just fresh that out a little bit and how you think that impacts specifically the European sub segment revenue growth this year?

John Gamble

Management

Yes, those we said the credit business performed very well, right with high single-digit local currency growth. So the impact really was specific to debt, with the debt service the business is very specific really mostly around the one large contract with the U.K. government. The contract itself is performing very well, we think we are collecting at rates that are above the expectations we are improving collections at rates that are above the expectations of our customer, which we think is very good. However, the funding of the project is part of the U.K. government budget cycle and we are working through that right now. Obviously, that's something that's a little bit new to us, in terms of working through the U.K. government budget cycle, but it's specific to that cycle that has resulted in a lower level of activity in the first half of this year. So we are hopeful that we will be able to work through that and as I said to move back type of performance throughout the year but it isn't a issue of the performance of the product of Aventure is performing well, it's really just very specific to the U.K. government budget cycle.

Andrew Jeffrey

Analyst

Okay, helpful. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Tim McHugh with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Tim McHugh

Analyst

Thanks. Mark maybe first one, it was helpful, you've given us a lot of contacts and I understand at early days in terms of your time there but to get to the high level a lot, what you describe I guess there are some other things I thought we are kind of in motion. Are there things that you would call out as you walk in at this point that you want differently you are emphasizing I guess maybe more than, we otherwise thought the kind of the plan was partially getting in it, just kind of understanding your perspective.

Mark Begor

Management

Yes, I think first I'll start with - I think the team has been, has got a great plan in place and when I think about areas of interest for me nine days in is it's around the patent accountability about around all our projects, as you might imagine there is a lot of work being done here and I'm a big ownership accountability follow-up kind of leaders. So the team had prophecy to place around that, I will just say that I'm going to try to strengthen those and make sure that we are really executing on these projects on a timely basis. Second, would be around this team was operating quickly. I'm a leader that that's the high bar and also my team and that place is really around let's get these projects done and get on with the next one. Third, would be around people, we are adding a bunch of resources here and I want to make sure we are adding top talent in the organization and retaining the talent that we have, so that's an important initiative and the last one is really around customers and transparency. I try to be clear about that and I think the team in the last few months was contributing towards a lot more open in transparent conversations with our customers and that's kind of a table six for me is being really clear with our customers having really strong relationships in connections with them and those four items I rather go off really aren't different probably from what they were doing but you can take from me perhaps some emphasis and really focus on those areas as being important and how I want to lead the business.

Tim McHugh

Analyst

That's helpful. And John, one question, just numbers when the rest from five year old reports now being fully trended, I guess I believe that does that kick in I guess throughout the full year? Is that a type of a fact that we should see during the next couple of quarters?

John Gamble

Management

We should yes, but that was I think the bulk of the quarter that occurred this quarter. So you will see it in any quarter going forward. Obviously mortgage tends to be a relatively high percentage of revenue earlier in the year in the first quarter and some of the second quarter investment does tend to tail-off but actually see that live throughout the year.

Tim McHugh

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from George Tong with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Allison Chou

Analyst

Hi, this is Allison Chou on for George. Thanks for taking my question. The International segment revenue grew 13% in 1Q has strengthened in couple of key regions, can you discuss how the operating environment for the International business is evolving and your outlook there as well as internal initiatives you have in place to sustain that growth?

John Gamble

Management

Yes, so international actually performed very nice other than that management which we talked about international performed very nicely, the growth rate we talked about across Latin America, U.K., Canada, Australia, were all very good. We're fortunate that it looks like the economy is really in all of our major countries are going to perform we think relatively well this year and so we feel very good about that. Some of the major focus areas for them are really continuing to be around NPI, Mark already covered it right NPI is the growth engine of the company, International has long been a very strong performer in NPI, they tend to perform frequently above our goal of vitality index of 10% and the deployment of Cambrian and then our decisioning systems international in international is really accelerating and our expectation is that will allow them to deliver new products faster and develop new products faster. Also what Mark talked about in terms of delivering machine learning through Cambrian and now most of our major international markets we think is something that is going to be very beneficial as we go forward. So we're excited about it and the trend across those businesses really in the credit business has been very strong.

Allison Chou

Analyst

Thanks, that's really helpful. And on NPI and kind of as a follow-up to Brett, you guys launched 17 new products in 2017 which is up about 30% year-over-year. Can you discuss how the ongoing personnel changes or kind of headcount shifts will impact the number of new product launches this year and NPI contribution or revenue growth?

John Gamble

Management

Just fraction and we launched kind of mid-50s in terms of new products in 2017 that is correct.

Mark Begor

Management

I think I mentioned in what is the prior question on NPI is there is no question, we've got some resource constraints versus pretty incident in all areas of business including NPI and as I said earlier we're working hard to backfill those resources that have been diverted over to work on the data security infrastructure rebuild and IT infrastructure rebuild. So I would say we expect to see some pressure, we want to work hard to try to mitigate that pressures we go through the year and it's it is only the first quarter and I think we said earlier the first quarter was a good start versus last year when it comes to NPI rollouts and we want to say on that important growth quarter for us.

Allison Chou

Analyst

Great, thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will move next to Bill Warmington with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Bill Warmington

Analyst

Good morning everyone.

Mark Begor

Management

Hey, Bill.

Bill Warmington

Analyst

So Mark, first of all welcome to you, I have to confess it, it's a bit of mixed feelings though because I think it's a nice hire for Equifax but we're losing you on the board in FICO, so that's kind of the offset. But you're welcome.

Mark Begor

Management

I missed Will and his team have a great business and I enjoyed my three years on the board.

Bill Warmington

Analyst

So a couple of questions for you, the first is and talking about the return of the project based business on the marketing side, I wanted to ask how are the reviews by clients going, are most of those now completed or they still there are some that are ongoing when you think, you can expect them to be completed and so you'll be fully greenlighted for new business?

John Gamble

Management

Bill, I think it's really what Mark covered in his opening comments, right. We continue to make very good progress, the discussions are ongoing, we haven't really set an end date right and quite honestly probably continue as we through much of the year as we continue to make progress with customers. This is an evolving process but as Mark indicated, very good progress and moving conversations back towards normal, backward consideration of new products and backward consideration of the type of CMS jobs that have been impacted certainly last year and through this quarter to a degree. So we think very good progress but in terms of setting an end date I don't think that's something we can do.

Mark Begor

Management

I will give you a live example from a meeting over there, a week ago Bill with one of our big customers, we spent the first 30 minutes or so giving an update on all the actions we're taking around the data security incidents, the investments and technology and in data security and the CEO of the business we were kind of halfway through our presentation and he said great dialogue let's spend the rest of the time talking about what we're going to do about partnering together help us grow. So I think that an example of that, we're going to be in this dialogue with them for as long as I can see meaning the what the next three quarters or may be longer of reporting out how we're doing but customers are counting on us making those investments, they're counting on it making the data and infrastructure security improvements. They are serious in our progress and they want to get back to talking about business and growth in our NPIs and how we can help them grow.

Bill Warmington

Analyst

And then my follow-up question for you is on the IT and security system side. It sounds like part of what has the preacher has done is given you an opportunity to really shut down a number of older versions of products and move clients to the latest base SaaS delivery as well and that sounds like a win-win in terms of getting the no more secure system and then also for you guys simpler and less expensive to support going forward. I wanted to ask how are those transitions going with clients have you found them receptive to it?

Mark Begor

Management

I think their first off you hit the nail in the head. I think you laid out what we're trying to do and the opportunity for us in the benefit to come to ask our customers and the other side of this transformation and it's still early days, we're I would say the first John correct if I'm wrong but the first six months or so since the incident, most of our work was around our data security efforts and I would say in the last couple months we started to move towards lot of the infrastructure improvements that you described they have a data security elements to it but they're also going to bring a lot of simplicity; a lot of cost, hopefully improvements to us and also. Allow us to be faster the market with products because we've got a simpler infrastructure and how we interact with our customers.

John Gamble

Management

And some of the transactions on the sizzling system our acceleration of the things that have been occurring so we been moving customers to SaaS system for some time this is just going to make they go much quicker.

Bill Warmington

Analyst

Got it. All right, well thank you very much for the insight.

Mark Begor

Management

Thanks, Bill.

Operator

Operator

We will take our next question from Jeffrey Meulerw with Baird. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Baird. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning guys. This is [indiscernible] on for Jeff. Just look at the margins outside of the GC as some of the other excitements I guess for little surprising to ask in the quarter. Despite stripping out the onetime cost you've outlined since trying to think about that John you mentioned the make shift to mortgage but is there anything else you guys can talk about what your ramping non onetime costs that may be impacting Q1 and then how that should sequence throughout the rest of 2018?

Mark Begor

Management

Yes, so I think that in the bridges that we try to provide in the script, right, we did talk and I think in each of the businesses other than GCS really in and it present there as well about security and for information cost, we in the fourth quarter we have given some very specific discussion around cost we expected to incur in 2018 related to security and IT investments as well as related to as related to insurers costs and we think we're seeing those, they're impacting our those are certainly impacting that the margins we saw on the first quarter and will likely impact throughout the year is consistent with the guidance we gave in March.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Baird. Please go ahead.

Okay, just specific to GCS given that you guys are marketing Q2 would you expect to similar kind of year-over -year margin in Q2 was relative to 2017?

Mark Begor

Management

We didn't really provide guidance on margins but please do remember right we're going to see continue acceleration and decline of the Consumer Direct business, so the marketing spend is out was out in the prior quarters and you can see an acceleration in the decline of it consumer direct business. So that certainly has an effect on margin.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Baird. Please go ahead.

Okay, that's helpful. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from David Ridley-Lane with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

David Ridley-Lane

Analyst

Sure. Appreciate the details on revenue related to the U.S. direct-to-consumer business when you're making that decision on the business later this year with the direct consumer direct-to-consumer business still be profitable at that point just to help shareholders understand the potential impact?

Mark Begor

Management

Obviously that the outcome of the decision, right, on how we are going to move forward will take into account the level of profitability we can deliver. So, at this point in time I don't think I can really address that specifically, but we will wait and see, we'll give you updates on how we are performing at USIS as we move through the year, and as we get to the point of making that decision obviously the level of profitability we think we can drive going forward will be an important consideration.

David Ridley-Lane

Analyst

Understood. And just how is the NPI-related revenue contribution in first quarter of this year versus last year?

Mark Begor

Management

Yes. So we don't generally give very specifics around NPI revenue by quarter. We tend to give it by year. And I think the update we gave today was simply to give people some perspective on the number of products that were launched in the quarter, so that we are seeing -- we are continuing to see momentum in product launches, but we had indicated pretty specifically that we would expect to see NPI revenue impacted in the year because of the customer impacts that we talked about a few times today.

David Ridley-Lane

Analyst

Understood, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

We will take our final question from Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Toni Kaplan

Analyst

Hi. Welcome, Mark.

Mark Begor

Management

Hi, Toni.

Toni Kaplan

Analyst

I know this has been asked in a couple of ways and even on the last question, but I think it could be helpful in understanding, you know, there is a pretty start difference between your growth in USIS and that of one of your primary competitors and you mentioned the government deferrals, but is there some sort of way to quantify some of the impacts on the commercial side? So just directionally like, how much is sort of this lower growth coming from like lower upselling or versus delayed spending of customer, just directionally, or if you just want to quantify in some other way I think that would just be very helpful. Thank you.

Mark Begor

Management

Yes, I think the level of detail we provided is what we can give right now, Toni. I mean, we specifically indicated that we're going to be trying to quantify dollar impact from the cybersecurity incident going forward, just because it's been so long since the event occurred that really isn't a reasonable comparison point. So at this point I think going forward we will talk about the revenue we generate and how it's moving forward, but I don't think we can provide more detail than we did in the script.

John Gamble

Management

I think we said in the call a couple of times, there is no question that the USIS team is seeing some pressure, and has seen some pressure from customers. It's really around the delay of new product work while they get comfortable around our cybersecurity and data infrastructure or rebuilt. And I characterized it a couple of times you know, it feels like those conversations are moving back towards more normal discussions as they get more comfortable with the seriousness that we are invested -- and large investments we are making in our infrastructure. So, that's kind of the color that we have so far, and the team is working hard as you might imagine, to get those NPIs and other product rollouts in front of customers.

Toni Kaplan

Analyst

Okay. And I'm sure the answer is no, but I guess there is no way to sort of give us a color on how many customers have just actually gone somewhere else versus continuing conversations with you?

Mark Begor

Management

I think the detail we have given today is what we can provide.

Toni Kaplan

Analyst

Thank you. Okay.

Operator

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session for today. I would like to turn the conference back over to Trevor Burns for any additional or closing remarks.

Trevor Burns

Management

I just want to thank everybody for joining the call. I appreciate your time. Have a good day.