Understanding, Meeting Challenges in the Financial Services Industry 

Are you facing new challenges as a result of this global economic crisis? In a recent blog post, SAS Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Jim Davis wrote that business leaders and executives need to “stop and examine what you’re doing to take advantage of the next wave. The tide has gone out, but it’s going to come back, and we’ll need to be able to catch the wave when it does.”

Here are some examples of changes that financial services institutions are making and the solutions SAS is mapping to their challenges: 

Alliant Credit Union (May 18, 2009)
“With enhanced analytic capabilities, we can provide better member service. From a risk management perspective, it will allow us to be more effective in managing both the risks and rewards. And from a marketing perspective, it will help us get the right message to the right member at the right time resulting in higher member satisfaction. This underscores our ability to deliver the ‘Alliant Advantage’ of consistently superior financial value to our members and a safe and secure place for saving and borrowing.” 

• About the institution: Not-for-profit, independently operated financial institution.
• Business topic: Financial intelligence.
• Solution: SAS® Enterprise Miner™.

Skye Bank (May 8, 2009)
"[SAS] has worked with financial institutions the world over, and we wanted a proven solution that would help us identify fraud and risk factors in our organization before they become a threat."

• About the institution: One of the top-10 banks in Nigeria.
• Business topic: Fraud detection.
• Solution: SAS® Anti-Money Laundering.

Union Bank (May 26, 2009)
"With SAS in place, Union Bank will have better consistency, efficiency and transparency in regards to its risk management program."

• About the institution: Full-service commercial bank providing an array of financial services and California's fifth largest bank by deposits.
• Business topic: Basel II compliance.
• Solution: SAS® Credit Scoring for Banking.

HSBC (May 26, 2009)
"We have chosen SAS as our solution for enterprise fraud management and are expanding our protection over other areas of fraud with SAS' software."

• About the institution: One of the world's largest banking and financial services organizations.
• Business topic: Fraud prevention and detection.
• Solution: SAS® Fraud Management.

Banca Etruria (May 27, 2009)
"We know it is effective because the positive results continue to grow."

• About the institution: Provides traditional banking, leasing, insurance, consumer credit, real estate management, financial services and business consulting services.
• Business topic: Customer relationship management.
• Solution: SAS® Customer Intelligence.

Old Mutual (June 4, 2009)
"SAS Customer Intelligence Studio 5.1 was installed and operational within three weeks - resulting in huge benefits and happy back office users."

• About the institution: Largest financial services provider in southern Africa.
• Business topic: Customer intelligence.
• Solution: SAS® Customer Intelligence.

Allied Bank (June 8, 2009)
"SAS has been highly recommended by local and globally located references. It offers a fully integrated solution that houses both risk and consumer solutions driven by extensive analytics ... [We] anticipate a quick return on our investment and an overall low cost of ownership."

• About the institution: One of the largest banks in Pakistan.
• Business topic: Risk management.
• Solution: SAS® Customer Intelligence, SAS® for Enterprise Risk Management, SAS® Enterprise BI Server.

FirstBank (July 22, 2009)
“By adopting a full risk management suite from SAS we are reinforcing transparency in our business and mitigating compliance and regulatory risks. It is important for us to lead the African continent in terms of complying with global standards, and being seen as a bank that takes its business seriously.”

• About the institution: One of the few Nigerian banks to adopt the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as certified by the International Accounting Standards Board.
• Business topic: Risk management.
• Solution: SAS® Banking Intelligence Architecture, SAS® Credit Risk Management for Banking, SAS® OpRisk Management, and Market Risk Management.

Banca delle Marche (July13, 2009)
“We wanted a single solution for building our own credit scorecards in-house ... Now, the bank’s technical and organizational structures can share objectives for credit scoring. In addition, the solution’s components are fully integrated with the mainframe, which helps management to better distribute project assignments among multiple parties. The SAS solution is key to meeting and advancing the increasingly complex credit risk assessment needs of the Banca Marche group.

• About the institution: Established in 1994 from the merger of three savings banks totalling more than 150 years of activity in their respective regions.
• Business topic: Risk management.
• Solution: SAS® Credit Scoring for Banking.