CARY, NC  (Dec. 05, 2007)  –  SAS, the market leader in enterprise intelligence has been selected as the winner of the Enterprise Risk Management and Operational Risk Management categories in the Leaders in Innovation Awards 2007, from Financial-I magazine. SAS led the way in the risk management group, being the only company to scoop two awards from the highly contested category. 
Top honours were awarded to SAS for its ability to demonstrate innovation in terms of its business strategy, the continued development of its risk intelligence software, as well as the significant impact made by its solutions to help SAS’ customers solve their business-specific concerns. 

“SAS is delighted that Leaders in Innovation has recognised the strength of our software and the benefits it brings to our customers. SAS prides itself on offering integrated risk solutions, based on our Enterprise Intelligence Platform, that can address customers’ risk intelligence needs and offer a more transparent, enterprise-wide view. Furthermore, we’re pleased to have been recognised as leaders in business strategy innovation” said Alastair Sim, SAS’ Global Programme Lead for Risk. “This is the latest in a long list of acclaims that SAS’ risk solutions have received; to be recognised so frequently clearly demonstrates that SAS is enabling customers in meeting their risk management requirements and in achieving superior risk-based performance management.” 

SAS’ approach to Enterprise Risk Management helps organisations go beyond compliance and manage risk strategically through risk-based performance management. It lets businesses control the entire risk process – from identifying risk, to measuring, mitigating and monitoring it on an ongoing basis and unites corporate risk initiatives across the board so companies can achieve the ultimate goal of true enterprise risk management.  SAS® OpRisk Management is a complete solution built on the industry-leading SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform. With powerful data management, analytics, and regulatory reporting and disclosure capabilities, SAS OpRisk Management helps organisation optimise capital allocation while mitigating risks in all areas of their business.

The second annual Leaders in Innovation awards provides recognition for banks and software and hardware vendors, identifying innovation leaders across wholesale transaction banking. Companies were short listed based on research conducted by Financial-I’s own team of journalists, including input from analyst firms.  “Leaders in Innovation is not about rewarding the banks and vendors with the largest market share or the most revenues” said Anita Hawser, Managing Editor of Financial-I magazine, “Although some companies may be pioneers in their space, our awards are about recognising those companies that demonstrate an ongoing commitment to innovation. Twelve months is a long time in the innovation stakes, so even though companies may have been judged innovation leaders last year, we have focused on what they and their competitors have done in the last 12 months to improve and build on these innovations.” 

This year has been an incredibly successful year for SAS’ Risk Intelligence software having received numerous industry-wide honours and awards. Most recently, in October 2007, SAS was ranked first in the “core risk technology” category and second overall in Chartis Research’s RiskTech 100 report. Chartis Research also positioned SAS as an established leader in its “Credit Risk Management Systems 2007” report. Earlier in the year, Chartis ranked SAS software as the leader in operational risk management for a third straight year and OpRisk & Compliance magazine’s named SAS OpRisk Management as a first-place recipient in the First Annual Compliance Software Ranking. In January, Risk magazine, a leading global financial risk management publication, selected SAS Risk Intelligence as its 2007 software product of the year.

Currently, more than 200 financial services institutions use SAS for credit risk and operational risk management, including: Bankdata (Denmark), BB&T (USA), Caisse Nationale des Caisses d’Epargne (France), Commerzbank (Germany), Grupo Santander (Spain), HSBC (UK), HypoVereinsbank (Germany), Kookmin Bank (Korea), Landsbanki (Iceland), Raiffeisen Zentralbank (Austria), Volkskreditbank AG (Austria), Vseobecna Uverova Banka (Slovakia) and Woori Bank (Korea).