What is “Alternative” Credit Data?

When you stop to think about it, the term “alternative credit data” is a catch-all phrase to describe data that is not currently reported on mainstream credit reports. But what, in reality, is alternative about it? For millions of people, it may not be alternative data but the only credit...

Are Short Sales Really That Bad?

My colleague Joanne Gaskin wrote a great post about the impact to the FICO® Score from short sales and other mortgage stress-related events. One of the questions we get asked most often is whether it remains appropriate for the scoring model to treat a short sale in a manner similar...

Enterprise Fraud Management: Not Just a Shaggy Dog Story?

Most people know a shaggy dog story is a long-winded tale that leads to a disappointing anticlimax. Recently, some industry commentators (but not all) have been comparing this kind of campfire tale with the race toward “enterprise fraud management” in banking, concluding that it is only going to lead to...

Research shows spikes in US card fraud

We've just released new research from our FICO® Falcon® Fraud Consortium in the US. It revealed some intriguing credit and debit card fraud trends in the data snapshot we studied, from January 2010 to September 2011. Here were the key fraud trends we saw for credit cards: Online, mail and...

Payment card fraud—a European success story

The following guest post was written by Robert Littas Those of us with some history in fraud management know quite well that 25 years ago, European payment card fraud losses were at 15 basis points. And chances are the actual numbers were considerably higher, since fraud reporting had not developed...

Fraud Analytics That Adapt on the Fly

A major implication of Big Data, as I discussed in my last post, is that analytics must rely less on persistent (historical) data and instead adjust dynamically in the stream. This is particularly true for fraud analytics, given the ever-changing nature of fraud. Here's an example. Development of the traditional...

Adeptra Acquisition Promises Full-Cycle Decision Management

This morning, we announced that FICO is acquiring Adeptra, a leader in customer engagement and risk intervention solutions. The deal is expected to be completed next month. I’m excited about this news, because I have seen the value that Adeptra’s technology can add to decision management in areas such as...

Improving Collections Performance: Q&A with KeyBank

Even during the most challenging economic downturn in decades, Cleveland-based KeyBank was able to drive improvement in its collections performance through a relationship-focused initiative powered by FICO® TRIAD® Customer Manager. Chip Clarke, KeyBank’s senior vice president for strategic analytics, talks about the program with Andrew Beckman, FICO’s principal consultant in...

Linking Risk and Capital in Asia

If news headlines are anything to go by, we in Asia Pacific are in for a rough ride ahead. A deep Eurozone recession could spell disaster for Singapore. According to Credit Suisse, Singapore's exports to the Eurozone directly account for more than 12 percent of our GDP. Additionally, private sector...

Why Model Governance Matters

Last month, my colleague Daniel Melo reported on a series of meetings he and IDC Financial Insights had held with European bankers on the subject of model governance. This is an increasingly vital issue for banks, insurers and other companies whose success depends on the quality of their analytics. Now...

What’s Holding Back Customer-Level Management?

Many banks cite customer management and retention as a top priority — so what’s stopping banks from basing every decision on a full view of the customer’s relationship? We posed that question recently to European risk managers as part of our European Credit Risk survey with Efma. While the pan-European...

Using mobile to reach the Latin American unbanked

As I’ve discussed here before, a key challenge we face in Latin America is our low rate of banking penetration. Common barriers for unbanked consumers include high fees, long distances for those in remote cities to the nearest bank branch, and lack of proof of income or a fixed address....