Egyptian Banks Sign Up for Cloud-Based Origination Service from FICO and I-Score

LONDON, June 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- FICO (NYSE:FICO), a leading predictive analytics and decision management software company, and I-Score, Egypt's credit bureau, today announced that several of the country's top banks will soon be using their groundbreaking cloud-based credit origination service.  Credit Agricole Egypt, Arab African International Bank and Blom Bank Egypt are among the lenders who will use the service to make decisions on requests for credit.

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Launched in 2012, the credit origination service is based on a multi-tenant installation of FICO^® Blaze Advisor^® business rules management system, hosted by I-Score. The service includes credit risk analytics developed by FICO, and offers lenders the ability to rapidly deploy preconfigured strategies that comply with Egyptian regulations, and change their lending criteria to match their risk appetite and market demands.

As a hosted solution, the credit origination service enables member banks of any size to access FICO's advanced analytics and decisioning capabilities. Each lender's data and decision logic is kept absolutely secure.

"The use of credit is growing rapidly in Egypt," said Mr. Mohamed Refaat El Houshi, managing director of I-Score. "This provides many opportunities for banks and credit grantors to increase their customer base, grow credit portfolios and generate more profit. It is vitally important that credit be granted appropriately and managed effectively. FICO's market-leading analytics and software, deployed on our reliable and scalable infrastructure, will help banks across the country make faster credit decisions while controlling risk."

"More and more banks are seeking cloud-based solutions for their business decisions," said Hayley Kershaw, vice president and managing director for FICO in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "While lenders can already access FICO customer management and fraud applications as services through card processors, this is the first global, multi-tenant hosted version of our originations software. I-Score is the perfect partner for this initiative — the bureau sits at the very core of Egypt's credit system, and collects both negative and positive data on all loans from the nation's banks. With this data and FICO analytics, banks can make lending decisions confidently based on highly accurate forecasts of consumer credit risk."

"I am thrilled to see I-Score leverage its unique position in the Egyptian market to provide FICO's state of the art hosted solution to the banking community," said Daniel Dib, managing director, Cadmus International a FICO partner in the Middle East since 2001."Now, banks in Egypt can access in one place a 360° view of consumers to make the optimal lending decision — a first in the Middle East."

About FICO
FICO (NYSE: FICO), formerly known as Fair Isaac, 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. FICO: Make every decision count^™. Learn more at www.fico.com.

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

About I-Score
The Egyptian Credit Bureau "I-Score"  maintains a database of credit information for SMEs and consumers. Authorized users (I-Score members) will be entitled to access I-Score database to carry out creditworthiness checks on consumers. I-Score now holds more than 95% of credit data of individuals and SMEs from commercial banks in Egypt, thus providing a clear indicator to the lending community and therefore honoring its promise of "Delivering Trust" to the financial community. Learn more at www.i-score.com.eg.

Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Information
Except for historical information contained herein, the statements contained in this news release that relate to FICO or its business are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including the success of the Company's Decision Management strategy and reengineering plan, the maintenance of its existing relationships and ability to create new relationships with customers and key alliance partners, its ability to continue to develop new and enhanced products and services, its ability to recruit and retain key technical and managerial personnel, competition, regulatory changes applicable to the use of consumer credit and other data, the failure to realize the anticipated benefits of any acquisitions, continuing material adverse developments in global economic conditions, and other risks described from time to time in FICO's SEC reports, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2012 and its last quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2013. If any of these risks or uncertainties materializes, FICO's results could differ materially from its expectations. FICO disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

FICO, Blaze Advisor and "Make every decision count" are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fair Isaac Corporation in the US and other countries.

SOURCE Fair Isaac Corporation