Ceska Sporitelna Will Use FICO Analytics to Optimize Offerings for Existing Customers

-- FICO assists largest Czech retail bank in analytically creating credit offers in line with customer needs

MUNICH, March 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- FICO (NYSE:FICO), the leading provider of predictive analytics and decision management technology, today announced that Ceska Sporitelna will use FICO optimization tools and methodologies to maximize the portfolio profit for its cash loan portfolio. The strategies will provide optimized offers with respect to lending amount and price for both existing and new customers. Ceska Sporitelna is the largest Czech retail bank and a subsidiary of Austria's Erste Bank Group.

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One major focus for Ceska is the optimization of its "pre-approved loans" decision strategy for existing customers. This defines the best terms and conditions to offer each customer for a consumer loan, ensuring loan amounts and prices are balanced against customer preferences and portfolio objectives. Ceska plans to start testing the new strategy this summer.

"Innovation has always been an important driver for our success," said Petr Kapoun, head of risk at Ceska Sporitelna. "In retail banking we are the market leader, holding about 30 percent of market share in almost all major product segments. The new solution enables us to further strengthen this position by adapting offerings to meet our customers' individual needs. The FICO solution convinced us because it uses comprehensive simulations that show the effect of different strategies on KPIs, providing insights into the profit drivers of our portfolios."

The ability to simulate the effects of different decision strategies will enable Ceska to better balance take-up rates with risk and profit. To achieve this goal, FICO experts have built several decision models, and delivered optimized strategies and training to the internal analytics team on FICO® Decision Optimizer, the tool the bank has also chosen for future optimization projects. This powerful, flexible, easy-to-use software provides an offline scenario analysis and optimization environment that can quickly output decision strategies ready for implementation into the bank's existing systems. As FICO Decision Optimizer supports the whole customer lifecycle, Ceska Sporitelna will be looking to develop decision models for other products and decisions.

"The retail banking market in the Czech Republic has reached a new phase of maturity," said Phillip Sertel, who oversees FICO's operations in DACH, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. "This means that customer service, precise calculations and segmentation, and fine-tuned risk management are keys to success."

FICO® Decision Optimizer is a business analyst tool that accelerates the creation of optimized decision strategies. Its models incorporate multiple scorecards, projections of potential actions and customer reactions, and multiple business objectives and constraints.

About Ceska Sporitelna
With more than 5 million clients, Ceska sporitelna is the largest bank in the Czech market by number of clients. The roots of the bank reach back to the savings bank Ceska sporitelna which was founded in 1825. The tradition of a Czech savings institution was continued in 1992 by Ceska sporitelna as a joint-stock company. In 2000, Ceska sporitelna became a member of Erste Group, one of the leading financial providers in Central and Eastern Europe with 17 million clients in eight predominantly EU-member countries. Within the next eighteen months, Ceska sporitelna successfully completed its transformation – a transformation that aimed at improving all key areas of the bank. Since then, Ceska sporitelna has been continuing the improvement of its products and services, and at the same time has been making work processes more effective.

About FICO
FICO (NYSE: FICO), formerly known as Fair Isaac, is a leading analytics software company, helping businesses in 90+ countries make better decisions that drive higher levels of growth, profitability and customer satisfaction. The company's groundbreaking use of Big Data and mathematical algorithms to predict consumer behavior has transformed entire industries. FICO provides analytics software and tools used across multiple industries to manage risk, fight fraud, build more profitable customer relationships, optimize operations and meet strict government regulations. Many of our products reach industry-wide adoption. These include the FICO® Score, the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the United States. FICO solutions leverage open-source standards and cloud computing to maximize flexibility, speed deployment and reduce costs. The company also helps millions of people manage their personal credit health. FICO: Make every decision count™. Learn more at www.fico.com.

For FICO news and media resources, visit www.fico.com/news.

FICO and "Make every decision count" are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fair Isaac Corporation in the United States and in other countries.