FICO selected by Turkey’s Akbank for decision optimization capabilities

By Edil Corneille

Global analytics and decision management provider FICO is providing decision optimization software to manage the growing consumer credit card portfolio for Turkish retail bank – Akbank.

FICO is said to have a global pedigree in credit limit management optimization projects and financial institutions globally use its optimization technology. Akbank will tap into this depth of experience to create an optimization centre of excellence. Akbank has tasked FICO to train an in-house team so they can build their own applications for other areas such as loan amount and pricing optimization, customer-based limit optimization and restructuring optimization.

FICO will configure and develop sophisticated “action-effect” models for Akbank’s retail lending team using the FICO® Decision Optimizer to manage their initial credit limit assignment and the on-going limits for Akbank’s consumer credit card portfolio. The action-effect models project customer responses to offers in order to determine the best offer for each customer. These will be configured into the optimization framework, allowing the Akbank team to choose an operating point that meets their objectives and constraints.

Serhan Pak, Akbank’s senior vice president, Retail Lending, said: “We view optimization as a strategic tool for Akbank, as we build on excellence in credit analytics to reach our strategic goals. The robustness of FICO’s analytic technology and the fact that their optimization applications are in use worldwide made them a natural choice for us.”

Emre Unlusoy, regional director for Turkey & Balkans at FICO, said: “Akbank is aiming to improve profitability, market share and revenues while decreasing non-performing loans. This is an ideal use of optimization, which brings together analytics, decision logic, mathematical optimization and domain expertise.”

FICO® Decision Optimizer enables business analysts to develop, assess and improve the decisions that drive customer interactions and business results. Users can test decision strategies for the optimal results that balance trade-offs between cost, risk and reward, by factoring in dynamic economic and market conditions.

Akbank has grown to over 750 branches and employs more than 12,000 people.