How Decision Management Powers Growth at African Bank

With decision management technology, businesses can make better decisions faster, and change strategies quickly to be more agile in the marketplace. An excellent example of this is African Bank, the seventh-largest bank in South Africa, which grew operating profit before tax by 67% in 2017, after launching in 2016.

Vere Millican, group executive for credit at African Bank, discussed the bank’s growth in an article this month in Cards International. In the following excerpt from the article, written by Patrick Brusnahan, Millican discusses the role of decision management technology in the bank’s success.

A big change for African Bank was adapting its decision-making process. For that, it needed third party FICO. After adopting FICO’s Blaze Advisor decision rules management system, strategies were launched 35% faster and at 25% lower cost. However, that was just the first test.

Now, Millican believes it is “close to double those numbers, especially in terms of speed”. African Bank looked for someone to work with after realising it was “inflexible from a change perspective”.

The South Africa-based firm approached various vendors such as Experian, but FICO won it over. Millican explains:

“Firstly, Blaze Advisor, as an architecturally sound piece of software, was far superior to us, and it met our needs.

“Secondly, from the start we were not treated like another client. They took the time out to listen, and there was never a huge sales pitch. That’s when you start building trust, when they treat you as a partner rather than a client. We’ve received a massive amount of support from FICO to deliver this product. It was just superior to any other engagement I’ve had with a third-party system supplier.”

For more information, see the case study on African Bank.