Samba Financial Group Selects Fair Isaac to Help Drive Basel II Compliance

Leading Saudi Arabian Bank to implement Fair Isaac risk management capabilities to support compliance goals across retail credit portfolios


(Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) - Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FIC), the leading provider of analytics and decision management technology, today announced that Riyadh-based Samba Financial Group (Samba) has chosen Fair Isaac services after a rigorous selection process to support the delivery of Basel II internal-ratings based (IRB) compliance across its retail portfolios.

Fair Isaac, in cooperation with its local agent Cadmus International, will deliver consulting services and advanced analytic capabilities to help one of Saudi Arabia’s largest banks meet compliance goals while effectively managing credit risk and growth. The implementation of best-practice techniques for credit and operational risk management will play an important role in enhancing Samba’s competitive advantages in capital calculations and requirements in the bank’s consumer card, mortgage and personal loan portfolios.

Developed to enhance the stability of global financial systems, the Basel II Accord redefines the methodology that institutions use for calculating capital reserves, making these calculations more sensitive to risk. Saudi Arabia expects all banks and financial institutions operating in the country to implement the standardized approach for credit risk by January 1, 2008, and then continue to move towards the more sophisticated IRB approach.

Under the IRB approach, banks with advanced risk management capabilities such as Samba will be permitted to use their own internal systems to measure credit risk, as opposed to the standardized approach which applies ratings provided by external credit assessment institutions. Samba currently utilizes the powerful scoring, segmentation and decision automation capabilities of Fair Isaac’s TRIAD™ adaptive control system to streamline its account management processes and achieve greater efficiencies in managing the risk exposure of its consumer card portfolio.

“Complying with the Basel II Accord is a critical issue for global banking institutions,” said Robert Duque-Ribeiro, Managing Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa markets at Fair Isaac. “Leading lenders such as Samba that take a more advanced approach to assessing risk and integrating this knowledge into decision-making processes are expected to secure considerable competitive advantage. With more than 50 years of applying advanced analytics to financial services challenges, Fair Isaac is uniquely positioned to assist Samba in achieving timely implementation of Basel II requirements for risk management.”

“Banks and financial institutions in this region have definitely embraced the analytics and technology upsurge, and I am very excited that we can now provide Samba with the best-of-breed approaches they require to effectively grow their business and comply with Basel II requirements,” said Daniel Dib, Managing Director of Cadmus International.

Fair Isaac has closely tracked the development of the Basel II Accord and is collaborating with clients worldwide to address required changes before guidelines take effect. Companies working with Fair Isaac for Basel II compliance are implementing scoring, segmentation, business rules and decision automation techniques through solutions like the company’s TRIAD system, Blaze Advisor™ business rules management system and FICO® scores.