Banreservas Automates 80 Percent of Loan Applications and Grows Business with Intelligent FICO Decision Engine

MIAMI, FL – March 11, 2020

Highlights:

• Banreservas has standardized credit assessment using analytics and decision management technology, allowing it to automate 80 percent of loan applications.
• Banreservas has increased the number of applications it can process by 30 percent and reduced loan processing times by 50 percent on average.
• Banreservas has substantially reduced delinquency rates on loans to consumers and SMEs.
• Banreservas won a 2019 FICO® Decisions Award for Customer Onboarding & Management.

Banreservas, the largest bank in the Dominican Republic and one of the largest in the Caribbean and Central America, has centralized and automated its credit origination processes using FICO analytics and decision management technology, enabling it to assess 80 percent of its loans automatically, increase loans processed by 30 percent and offer up-sells to 47 percent of approved applicants. The bank has also reduced costs by substantially cutting delinquency rates on loans to consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

More information: https://www.fico.com/en/products/fico-origination-manager

The Dominican Republic has a strong economy and an increasingly competitive consumer and SME lending environment, so Banreservas knew it needed to improve its offering to maintain loan volume and position itself for further growth.

To do this, the bank wanted to standardize credit assessment in its 250+ branches through an automated process that would provide centralized control of credit evaluation policies. Its goals were to control delinquency rates within a defined risk appetite, increase loan growth and improve the customer experience through faster, more consistent loan assessment.

Banreservas worked with FICO to carefully create an approach tailored to its needs across personal loans, credit cards and loans to SMEs. FICO recommended the implementation of new credit scoring models, the evaluation and optimization of credit policies and the use of FICO® Origination Manager Decision Module to automate intelligent loan decisions across the bank's branches.

"The Dominican Republic has experienced 17 years of economic growth and increasing income levels, and as a result we have seen exponential growth in our retail credit business, all while improving our asset portfolio quality and default loans" said Mariel Abreu, Chief Risk Officer at Banreservas. "Partnering with FICO has allowed our company to experience growth and progress in this dynamic business environment. The analytic tools and expertise provided by FICO to help better understand our customer's risk profile has played an important part in our ability to make more informed decisions."

The introduction of Origination Manager Decision Module allows for faster and more consistent application of credit evaluation policies and empowers business users to adjust decision strategies quickly. The platform is used to calculate credit scores, determine a customer's ability to pay and identify potential commercial opportunities aligned to the clients' profile. This results in greater speed and lower risk in the design and deployment of credit policy as well as the continued development of more profitable strategies.

To ensure the success of the project, Banreservas rolled out a strong internal campaign, in order to raise awareness and train staff on all the advantages that this new credit platform would give them.

"The automation of the loan evaluation process has created a lot of opportunity at Banreservas," said Alexandre Graff, FICO general manager for Latin America and the Caribbean. "Not only has it brought them more business, it has freed staff to work on more complex loan applications and other priorities for the bank. The change management aspect of the project also contributed positively to a more robust risk culture and fostered a customer-centric vision. So, a great result all around!"

For its achievements, Banreservas won a 2019 FICO® Decisions Award for Customer Onboarding & Management.

"Banreservas changed the way it does business," said Mike Gualtieri, VP & Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, one of the FICO Decisions Awards judges. "I gave Banreservas high marks for significantly improving its risk assessment of consumers whilst issuing loans faster."

About Banreservas
Banreservas, otherwise known as the Reserve Bank of the Dominican Republic, is a government owned bank which was established in 1941. It offers banking services to consumer and business customers. The bank currently has over 250 branches and offers a range of products and services including credit and debit cards, loans, mortgages, savings accounts, current accounts, certificates of deposit and tax services.

About the FICO® Decisions Awards
The FICO Decisions Awards recognize organizations that are achieving remarkable success using FICO solutions. A panel of independent judges with deep industry expertise evaluates nominations based upon measurable improvement in key metrics; demonstrated use of best practices; project scale, depth and breadth; and innovative uses of technology. The 2019 judges are:

• Mike Gualtieri, VP and principal analyst at Forrester
• Sharon Kimathi, editor at FinTech Futures
• Leslie Parrish, analyst – retail banking at Aite
• Denise Sleem, functional specialist at Medscheme, 2018 winner
• Alex Woodie, managing editor at Datanami
• Les Yeamans, founder at RT Insights

The winners of the FICO Decisions Awards will be spotlighted at various FICO events in 2020 and win tickets to FICO® World 2021, the Decisions Conference, April 2021 in Orlando, Florida.

About FICO
FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956 and based in Silicon Valley, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 195 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 100 countries do everything from protecting 2,6 billion payment cards from fraud, to helping people get credit, to ensuring that millions of airplanes and rental cars are in the right place at the right time.

Learn more at www.fico.com.

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Media contact:

Adriana Limón
Porter Novelli for FICO
+52 55 5010-3264
adriana.limon@porternovelli.com 

Fernando Millán
Porter Novelli for FICO
+52 55 5010-3200 ext. 3311
fernando.millan@porternovelli.com