Fighting Financial Crime — Why FICO Acquired TONBELLER

FICO announced today that we have acquired TONBELLER an innovative provider of financial crime prevention and compliance solutions based in Bensheim, Germany. With this announcement, FICO has moved firmly into the rapidly growing market for financial crimes and compliance solutions. We intend to bring the benefits of advanced analytics and a risk-based approach to a field dominated by older, relatively inflexible, rule-based systems.

The need for these solutions is absolutely critical. CROs are under mounting pressure to manage increasingly sophisticated fraud / financial crimes as well as an increasingly dynamic regulatory environment – and to do so amid growing time and resource constraints. This is exacerbated by the fact that incumbent, rule-based systems are proving to be inflexible and costly to maintain in the face of evolving regulations – and the penalties for this inadequacy can easily reach into the billions of dollars in fines, increasing the institution’s risk and endangering its ability to operate, and in some cases leading to criminal prosecution.

This is not just a business priority, it’s an international priority. The risks involved include security and data risks, financial risks like credit and interest rates, and corporate-level risks, including supplier/vendor relationships and reputation risk. What’s more, financial crimes often end up funding the worst kinds of non-financial crimes, including terrorism.

By combining FICO predictive analytics, such as those used in the FICO® Falcon® Platform, with TONBELLER’s risk-based financial crime and compliance products, FICO can introduce a complete, enterprise-grade offering that directly addresses the chief risk and compliance officer’s needs.

We’re excited about the potential to merge fraud protection and cybersecurity with financial crimes and compliance, and we chose the best firm in TONBELLER. It’s a great combination and one both organizations are very excited about. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know our new colleagues over the past several weeks and while my German isn’t much better than when I started, I’ve developed a warm appreciation for the people and hospitality that I experienced in Bensheim, Germany.

I encourage you to read more about TONBELLER solutions at www.tonbeller.com. For more on the acquisition, visit www.fico.com/tonbeller.