Experian has canned its proposed £275 million acquisition of rival credit referencing firm ClearScore in the wake of resistance to the deal from competition regulators.
The UK's anti-trust watchdog in November provisionally found that a merger would likely weaken competition in the credit reporting sector and have a negative effect on the services offered to customers.
As the two largest credit checking firms in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority contented that the affect of taking one of the firms out of the market would be to substantially reduce the pressure to continue to develop innovative offers and to make other improvements in services.
In a brief statement explaining its pull-back from the deal, Experian states: "Further to the Provisional Findings published by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on 28 November 2018 and taking into account subsequent interaction with the CMA, Experian does not believe that the CMA will approve the proposed acquisition of ClearScore on satisfactory terms, despite the dynamism and competitive nature of the market, and the customer benefits arising from the proposed transaction. Experian and ClearScore's shareholders have therefore taken the decision to abandon the proposed transaction."