PNC's Gordon Cameron calls for a new approach to lending

In his keynote address today at FICO World 2011, PNC Executive Vice President and Credit Executive Gordon Cameron said that banks need a new approach to lending, in order to adapt to a fast-changing marketplace and economic pressures. Speaking to a sold-out audience of 700 bankers from 42 countries, Cameron said this approach is critical to create prosperity for banks, their customers and the economy.

“We must lend — waiting out this difficult period is not an option,” Cameron said. “But to lend safely, we need to change the way we measure risk, understand consumers and make credit decisions. As the recession showed, the systems most banks use today simply aren’t ready for the new lending environment.”

Cameron said that banks must move away from static measures of consumer risk and customer behavior, and develop adaptive systems that identify changes in behavior more rapidly, estimate likely future changes, and change decisions as a result. He described PNC Bank’s development of a system with an “analytic learning loop” that will continually monitor the results of lending decisions and enable the bank to adjust strategies.

“The market is too dynamic for banks to rely on static systems,” Cameron asserted. “We have chosen to create a world-class system that changes on a dime and gives us nearly instant feedback about what’s happening. That is a game-changer.”