19 January 2007

Continuation of SAS Business Knowledge Series

SAS, the leader in business intelligence software and services, is hosting a series of Credit Risk Solutions Courses in Dublin which will be of interest to financial controllers, risk officers, compliance officers and those involved in complying with Basel II. The courses will help financial institutions build effective and high-performing credit scoring systems as required under Basel II. Basel II necessitates that financial institutions calculate and aggregate market, credit and operational risk measures in a form that provides transparency and comparability while minimising efforts and investments in risk management.

In March, Developing Credit Risk Solutions for Basel II will be presented by Dr. Christophe Mues an expert in this field from the School of Management, University of Southampton. The courses are being held from Wednesday 28th to Friday 30th March 2007 inclusive at the New Horizon Computer Learning Centre, Strand House, 22-24 Strand Street Great, Dublin 1,

In September, the Advanced Credit Risk Solutions for Basel II, presented by Dr. Bart Baesens from the School of Management at the University of Southampton, will supplement the March session and go into more detail on difficulties arising when modelling loss given default (LGD) and exposure at default (EAD). This course which will run from Wednesday 5th to Friday 7th September 2007 inclusive.

"This series of courses will provide a sound mix of both theoretical and technical insights, as well as practical implementation details illustrated by several real-life cases studies," commented Martin Duffy, Head of Professional Services, SAS Ireland. "These courses continue the very popular SAS® Business Knowledge Series, which brings leading industry experts to Ireland."

SAS® Credit Risk Solutions Courses are suitable for executives responsible for building scoring systems and for monitoring their behaviour and performance. For more information, please visit www.sas.com/ireland/education/basel2.html, Places are limited so those interested in attending should book early by contacting Marie.O'Donnell by email (Marie.O'Donnell@irl.sas.com) or telephone (+353 (1) 613 6400).

About the Lecturers
Dr. Bart Baesens is Assistant Professor at the School of Management from the University of Southampton. His research focuses on the use of data mining and machine learning techniques for credit scoring and customer relationship management (CRM) applications. His findings have been published in various journals and presented at international conferences. He has already successfully organised this course on various continents where it has been attended by more than 200 people from financial institutions.

Dr. Christophe Mues is Assistant Professor at the School of Management of the University of Southampton (UK). His key research interests are in the business intelligence domain, where he has investigated the use of decision table and diagram techniques in a variety of problem contexts, most notably business rule modelling and validation, and knowledge discovery and data mining. In addition, he has developed a strong interest in applying data mining techniques to financial risk management and credit scoring in particular. He has cooperated with public services, companies and financial institutions in each of these areas, and his findings have been published in various journals and presented at international conferences. Furthermore, he has taught training courses on Credit Scoring for Basel II in several European and Asian countries, each in collaboration with SAS.

About SAS
SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at more than 40,000 sites - including 96 of the top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500® - to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organisations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For nearly three decades, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know^®. Visit our website at www.sas.com/ireland.

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