SAS fuels momentum with record risk intelligence sales in Asia Pacific

SAS, the leader in business intelligence (BI) and analytics, has set a new sales record for risk management software in the Asia Pacific region. This record revenue, up 156 percent compared to revenue achieved up to August 2007, demonstrates that financial institutions view SAS as a key component in meeting their evolving risk management needs.

SAS offices in the region have sold risk solutions ranging from operational and credit risk to anti-money laundering. With more than half of the customer organizations investing in more than one SAS® solution, it is evident that customers see the value of an integrated risk platform.

For example, in India, firms such as Dena Bank have invested in SAS enterprise risk management solutions to deal with strong regional economic growth as well as regulatory requirements.

“Dena Bank selected SAS® Credit Risk Management and SAS® OpRisk Management because of the solutions’ proven depth, coverage and richness in feature functionality and the SAS team’s risk domain knowledge,” said Ramnath Pradeep, General Manager IRM & IT with Dena Bank. ”With SAS, Dena Bank has the foundation to address Basel II regulations and strengthen its integrated, enterprise wide risk platform"

Like Dena Bank, EON Bank Group in Malaysia was also in need of a reliable solution from an experienced software provider to achieve Basel II compliance. "We chose SAS entirely on its merits. SAS could provide the depth of analytical and risk management expertise that we needed through its full suite of proven risk solutions to address immediate requirements of Basel II and future needs,” said Zarina Shaari, Head of Group Risk, EON Bank Group.

“The Asia Pacific market is very diverse, with countries at different stages of economic development,” said John Foulley, the Head of SAS’ Risk Management Practice in the Asia Pacific region. “However, the need to provide an integrated platform remains the same, from Japan to Malaysia, India to Australia. Be it for the reduction of the total cost of ownership or establishing the right platform from the onset, more banks are choosing an integrated approach to risk management across their organization, and turning to SAS to help provide this approach.”

Today’s announcement was made at The Premier Business Leadership Series event in Mumbai. Presented by SAS, The Series brings together more than 500 public and private sector attendees to share ideas and knowledge on critical business management issues.
SAS® for Enterprise Risk Management

Enterprise risk management entails more than balancing risk and reward, and goes beyond regulatory compliance. It embeds risk management into everyday processes at all levels of the organization in order to truly drive business evolution.

Recently, SAS was placed in the Leaders quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Operational Risk Management Software for Financial Services ¹ by Gartner Inc. SAS repeated its lead position in Research’s report Credit Risk Management Systems 2008 for retail banking. The momentum for SAS in the operational risk management space was also evidenced by doubling revenue growth in operational risk sales for 2007 and securing the leadership position in Chartis’ Operational Risk Management Systems 2008 for the fourth straight year.

1. Gartner Research. Magic Quadrant for Operational Risk Management Software for Financial Services, Douglas McKibben, David Furlonger, June 6, 2008.