FICO Asia Pacific Fraud Forum Calls Bankers' Attention to Growing Problem of Enterprise Fraud

SINGAPORE, Sept. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- FICO (NYSE:FICO), the leading provider of analytics and decision management technology, alerted chiefs of leading Asian banks to the growing threat of enterprise fraud at its annual Fraud Forum in Manila this month. FICO urged the bankers to adopt the latest operational and analytic techniques to fight fraud across such emerging threat vectors as demand deposit accounts, mobile channels, application fraud and merchant fraud, as the region shifts to a post-EMV chip landscape.

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The conference attracted nearly 30 of the leading banking fraud and risk executives from nine countries across Asia Pacific, who met for three days to address the growing sophistication of criminals who commit fraud, and the latest approaches to thwarting them.

FICO estimates that fraud in Asia Pacific costs in excess of US$350 million each year and is growing at an annual rate of 20-25%. Closing loopholes for criminals while delivering services that minimize customer inconvenience remains a key concern for banks. Mobile and online fraud, specifically card not present (CNP) transactions, continue to present a challenge, especially in markets that have secured traditional card transactions with EMV chips and pins.

"Asian consumers place a high value on convenience and are among the fastest adopters of new channels such as mobile and online banking," said Dan McConaghy, president for FICO in Asia Pacific, who hosted the forum. "At the same time they seek confidence from banks that these channels are effectively protected, so rapid deployment of channel-specific defenses is especially critical in Asia.  By taking an enterprise-wide approach, banks can earn their customers' trust with swift fraud detection and positive customer contact, while also minimizing losses."

Research firm Berg Insight predicts that the number of mobile financial services users will grow to 894 million globally by 2015, with a majority of that growth occurring in Asia. In fact, China alone already accounts for 40 percent of mobile banking users worldwide, according to separate research by analysts at Celent. Asia is leading the way in mobile banking because consumer behavior is leading the banks, but also because of the benefits to investing in consumer technology in areas with high growth and lower branch numbers.

At the Fraud Forum, FICO also announced the transformation of the industry-leading FICO^® Falcon^® Fraud Manager, which protects 2.5+ billion card transactions per year, into a broad technology platform that will accommodate individual solutions for business segments, including credit, debit and online/DDA/mobile. In addition, FICO's Dr. Maria Derderian explained how innovative streaming analytics are able to "learn" from individual changes in customer spending to deliver more accurate fraud scoring and fewer false positives. FICO detailed this new approach to fraud analytics in a white paper, "Is it Fraud? Or New Behaviour?" which was released at the event.

Forum participant Emmanuel Narciso, head of transaction banking for BDO Unibank, the Philippines' largest bank, said, "We welcome the developments in fraud management technology and techniques across all the channels where our customers transact. Fraud risk and customer service is a very important balancing act for our bank, especially as Filipinos are taking to online and mobile banking in greater numbers."

More information on FICO's enterprise fraud approach is at www.fico.com/enterprisefraud.
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FICO (NYSE: FICO) is a leading analytics software company, helping businesses in 80+ 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 — such as 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.

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