FICO Helps Consumers Stay on Budget this Holiday Season with Papai Noel Edition of Missao: Positivo Mobile Game

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• Brazil - Português

SAO PAULO, Dec. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- FICO (NYSE: FICO), a leading predictive analytics and decision management software company, announced today the Papai Noel edition of FICO™ Missao: Positivo, a popular mobile financial education game in Brazil. The holiday version of FICO Missao: Positivo, which is free, offers additional calculators to help consumers understand the impact of their spending and financing choices and stay within their holiday budget.

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Calculators help players earn credits that can be used to unlock bonus features of the game, including a new mini-application: Papai Noel (Father Christmas), with a holiday-theme. Tips and questions found in Papai Noel and all of the other mini-applications are designed to help consumers improve their knowledge of finance and credit.  The tips new to this edition will help consumers learn how to plan and budget for holiday spending, what credit can really cost if used to finance holiday purchases, how to evaluate store promotions and how to invest their "13th salary" holiday bonus wisely.

"Recent studies are showing that a very large part of the Brazilian population considers credit to be a means of payment and an extension of their monthly salary," said Robert Duque-Ribeiro, vice president of Fair Isaac Advisors for FICO. "Holidays are the prime period of the year to push consumption, and exacerbate these mistaken beliefs. When consumers don't budget properly in the holiday season, they struggle to meet their payments in the new year. We developed the Papai Noel edition to help consumers understand how to prepare a holiday budget responsibly, manage credit and finances better, and avoid the post-holiday financial hangover."

Consumers can download FICO Missao: Positivo for free from Google Play and the Apple App Store. Both new and existing players will need to accrue credits to unlock the Papai Noel mini-app.  Consumers who sign on to the FICO Missao: Positivo landing page will be able to access insider tips and get advance notice of new releases and future updates. Players are encouraged to post their experiences with the game to both Facebook (FICO Missao: Positivo) and Twitter.

FICO Missao: Positivo was released on September 26 as a test approach to educate consumers. It reached 1,000 downloads within 10 days and it is the only financial education game ranked in the top 500 on both Google Play and the Apple App Store. FICO Missao: Positivo proved to be quite popular and FICO has decided to keep increasing and expanding its use among Brazilian consumers.

SOURCE FICO