Fair Isaac Global FICO Score Introduced in South Korea

Fair Isaac Corporation, the leading provider of analytics and decision management technology, today announced a multi-year agreement with Korea Credit Bureau (KCB), the Republic of Korea’s premier provider of consumer credit information. KCB will market and sell Fair Isaac’s industry-proven Global FICO® score, enabling lenders in that nation to sharpen their evaluation of consumer risk, streamline decision processes and increase profitability.

Global FICO score rank-orders consumers according to their credit risk. Designed to be consistently scaled across credit bureaus and across national borders, Global FICO score has established the global standard for consumer credit risk assessment. The Fair Isaac technology underlying the Global FICO scoring model enables quick deployment in any country that has robust credit bureau data. Korea Credit Bureau plans to provide Global FICO scores to financial institutions and credit lenders starting in early 2007.

"Our alliance with Korea Credit Bureau opens a new chapter for lenders in the Republic of Korea who serve the consumer credit market," said Ron Totaro, vice president of Global Scoring at Fair Isaac. "Global FICO score provides a way for lenders throughout the country to quickly implement highly predictive risk assessment solutions. By gaining better control of risk, they also can speed up decision processes and increase their profits."

"Our member lenders founded the Korea Credit Bureau to improve the quality of credit data in this market by sharing both positive and negative data as advanced countries do," said Buhmsoo Choi, Ph.D. and senior vice president of the credit evaluation department at Korea Credit Bureau. "We expect that credit data of KCB will become more powerful by being combined with Fair Isaac’s proven, world-class analytic science. By using Global FICO credit risk scores, it is anticipated that lenders will be able to more accurately determine a consumer’s credit risk and can tailor their credit offerings to every risk profile."

Fair Isaac developed its Global FICO score technology using knowledge and experience it gained from analyzing a wide range of credit data over many years. By addressing a variety of predictive variables, the score technology accommodates a broad range of bureau configurations and available data.

Global FICO® score may also assist lenders to meet their Basel II and other regulatory compliance requirements. The scores are complementary to custom application and behavior models, and can be used alongside internal scores at all stages in the credit lifecycle to improve decisions throughout the lending process, from marketing and account origination to full portfolio management.