Aiful, Japan's Third Largest Consumer Finance Company, Will Automate Collections with Cloud-Based FICO Solution

FICO customer contact solution maintains collection rate, lowers costs and delivers a high-quality customer experience

SINGAPORE — 14 September, 2015

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Aiful Corporation is the first company in Japan to implement FICO^® Customer Communication Services to automate collections.
• FICO's customer contact solution allows Aiful to reduce the cost to collect and handle peak volumes without additional staff.
• The implementation has helped improve Aiful’s cure rate – when people who have fallen behind in payments get back up to date and in good standing – to the same level as that achieved by call centre staff.
• Customers prefer automation: Upon hearing the reason for the collections call, 80% of customers used the self-serve account options without asking to speak to an agent.
• Consumers benefit from timely awareness of loan arrears. This allows them to organize alternative repayment arrangements and avoid negative events on their credit file.

For more information: http://www.fico.com/en/products/fico-customer-communication-services  

Together with its client Aiful Corporation (TYO: 8515), one of Japan’s largest consumer finance companies, FICO (NYSE:FICO) is bringing significant benefits of automated, analytics-based customer engagement to Japan.

Aiful has implemented FICO^® Customer Communication Services to improve its customers’ experience and reduce collection costs. The solution delivers intelligent, scalable, two-way, automated voice, text, e-mail and mobile app notifications, with a human touch. Based on these results, the Kyoto-based lender plans to extend its use of the solution to its subsidiaries.

Shinichiro Okuyama, executive officer at Aiful, said, “Aiful Corporation’s strategy is to adapt global best practices in automated debt collection to align with Japanese cultural and business norms. Working with FICO, we have been able to leverage automated contact technology to match the results that a human caller can achieve, yet at a lower cost, while ensuring customer experience is excellent and compliant with Japanese collection legislation.”

FICO helped Aiful to develop legally compliant scripts for the Japanese market that consider regional speech patterns and social sentiments. The solution also incorporates tailored customer service options, such as varying promise-to-pay days, contact strategy and channel selection options.

Aiful and FICO also designed collection strategies that optimize the blend of automated voice with human agents to deliver the best possible cost-to-collect, cure rate and customer experience. Aiful then verified the performance of these strategies through champion/challenger testing and used the results to create a new best-practice approach to collection for the Japanese market.

This approach frees agents to focus on higher value work. It also ensures that Aiful is complying with strict regulations at all times, including during peak periods.

As a pay-as-you-go, cloud-based platform, FICO Customer Communication Services is specifically designed to meet the challenges and sensitivities of debt collection, including the need to respond quickly to new business goals and regulations.

Hiroshi Muramoto, country manager for FICO in Japan, said, “By developing a best-practice automated collection communication system, Aiful is demonstrating its leadership in the industry and paving the way for a new standard of call center operation in Japan.”

FICO^® Customer Communication Services currently places more than 1.5 million calls globally every day, which is comparable to calling every citizen of Kyoto, Japan. It also sends a quarter of a million SMS messages globally every weekday – the equivalent of one SMS for every word in the English language. 
 

About Aiful:
AIFUL CORPORATION (TYO: 8515), one of top three consumer finance companies based in Kyoto in Japan, provides consumer financing and business financing, which play a central role in the AIFUL Group’s overall business. The Company’s principal services include unsecured loans, mortgage loans and small business loans. In addition, the Company handles credit guarantee services in tie-ups with commercial banks.

Learn more at http://www.ir-aiful.com/english/index.cfm

About FICO
FICO (NYSE: FICO) is a leading analytics software company, helping businesses in 90+ countries make better decisions that drive higher levels of growth, profitability and customer satisfaction. The company’s groundbreaking use of Big Data and mathematical algorithms to predict consumer behavior has transformed entire industries. FICO provides analytics software and tools used across multiple industries to manage risk, fight fraud, build more profitable customer relationships, optimize operations and meet strict government regulations. Many of our products reach industry-wide adoption. These include the FICO^® Score, the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the United States. FICO solutions leverage open-source standards and cloud computing to maximize flexibility, speed deployment and reduce costs. The company also helps millions of people manage their personal credit health. FICO: Make every decision count™. Learn more at www.fico.com.

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