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Responsible lending and excellence in credit risk management promoted by Birmingham Midshires, SAS and Sheffield Hallam UniversityCredit Development Academy offers a unique career framework28 September 2006 - A new Credit Development Academy (CDA) has been set up to promote responsible lending and to support the professional development of those in credit risk management. The CDA is a unique partnership between SAS, the market leader of business intelligence (BI) software, Birmingham Midshires (BM), the specialist mortgage lending business of HBOS plc. and Sheffield Hallam University. The academy will enable staff in the BM secured specialist credit risk team to gain postgraduate degree level qualifications, plus they will get recognition for their specialist skills in operational and portfolio credit risk management and the supporting SAS technologies. The CDA allows BM employees to study the SAS BI MSc course at Sheffield Hallam University. This will develop the careers of existing staff in the BM credit risk team, as well as support BM's aim to retain the best professionals and attract the top candidates to a career in credit risk management. The initiative encourages colleagues to choose different development paths to suit their individual needs, recognising that qualifications are only one part of career development. SAS’ expertise in credit risk solutions and analytics, alongside its educational offering and links to academic institutions makes it an ideal partner for the CDA. SAS has already successfully developed and delivered the Sheffield Hallam University MSc in Business Intelligence. By using the educational expertise of Sheffield Hallam University and SAS, the BM secured specialist credit risk team can maximise its investment in SAS software. Rob McQuade, director of credit risk, Birmingham Midshires said, "Working in the specialist mortgage sector we have an exceptional responsibility to excel at credit risk analytics, so we are delighted to be working with SAS and Sheffield Hallam University in pursuit of both professional and academic excellence". To help broaden and deepen awareness of the SAS’ software capabilities, BM has also set up a dedicated "LearnIT" resource centre for the CDA, where colleagues are able to source contemporary reference material about credit risk management, fraud detection, data mining, data management, SAS data management & analytics and other key topics. SAS has also produced a dedicated SAS webpage linked to the internal CDA website, providing tailored information from a business and technical perspective for its CDA users. Commenting on the choice of partners, Nikkie Windsor, credit systems manager at Birmingham Midshires said in her opinion, "The SAS based academic courses at Sheffield Hallam University are the best in the UK." To build upon the current educational offerings, SAS and the specialist lender are now in partnership to develop further tailored training and support in the credit risk area. They are designing specific credit risk modules to be included in Sheffield Hallam University’s MSc business intelligence courses, aiming to elevate the study of credit and credit risk to a specialist academic discipline. Until now the skill and intellectual rigour required to fulfil the credit risk function in a financial institution has not been recognised; with the introduction of these university modules, credit risk will become acknowledged academically. Modules will be developed for the university’s foundation courses, bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees in business intelligence and applied statistics. John Dalton, CEO of SAS UK comments: "We are very proud to be associated with HBOS and the work which the CDA does. This is a great opportunity for SAS to promote development within the field of credit risk management and to support HBOS in giving credit risk the recognition it deserves." About BM About Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield Hallam University is one of the UK's leading post-1992 universities as is one of the UK's larger universities, with 28,000 students and around 4,000 staff.
SAS is the leader in business intelligence software and services. Customers at 40,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight into vast amounts of data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products. Only SAS offers leading data integration, intelligence storage, advanced analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world
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