China Guangfa Bank Credit Card Center Cuts Collection Costs and Improves Customer Service Using FICO Solution

BEIJING, China - 9 August, 2017

HIGHLIGHTS:

• China Guangfa Bank Credit Card Center is using FICO^® Customer Communications Services (CCS) to help reduce its cost of collections and improve customer service across its credit card portfolio
• China Guangfa Bank Credit Card Center has improved the average daily rate of repayment by 2 percent  and collected several hundred million yuan in repayments since deploying FICO CCS in March 2016
• China Guangfa Bank Credit Card Center has won the “Best Self-Service Banking Project in China” award from The Asian Banker following the successful rollout of its Intelligent Collections Project

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

China Guangfa Bank Credit Card Center (CGB Credit Card Center) is using FICO^® Customer Communications Services (CCS) to help reduce its cost of collections and improve customer service across its credit card portfolio.

More than a year after the rollout, the business unit has managed to improve the average daily rate of repayment by 2 percent and has collected several hundred million yuan in repayments using the FICO solution. The use of this solution has also resulted in a significant lift in customer satisfaction levels for CGB Credit Card Center. Since the project was launched, the number of complaints the bank receives has dropped to one-tenth of when they were running manual collections.

The success of the project has earned CGB Credit Card Center an award from The Asian Banker for ‘Best Self-Service Banking Project in China’.

“CGB Credit Card Center has been at the forefront of automated collections for banking in China for many years,” said Mr. Lin Deming, General Manager of CGB Credit Card. “The CGB Credit Card Center was first to deploy an intelligent collection robot in China. Now with the help of FICO we are applying flexible machine learning and an optimized calling and communications strategy to the business, which has created great efficiencies. Our recovery rate is up, our costs are down and we have seen a reduction in our complaints. This marriage of ‘finance + technology’ has been a remarkable development for CGB’s credit card business, helping us hit a volume of more than 50 million customers with a portfolio credit balance exceeding RMB 300 billion. It is a good example of a project that builds on China’s national strategy of fintech innovation and provides cardholders and consumers with a creative and positive banking experience.”

Like other leading Chinese banks, CGB Credit Card Center previously had a large call center team of collections agents that dealt with credit card delinquencies. The rapid growth of China Guangfa Bank’s credit card business required more capacity, but increased labor costs and tighter collection policies from the regulators meant that trying to quickly expand the number of high-quality call centre agents was a significant obstacle. This prompted CGB Credit Card Center to use automated collections to improve operational flexibility and address capacity requirements originating from its growing business needs.  FICO CCS now satisfies a large number of requests during non-working hours, greatly expanding collections productivity.

The deployment of FICO^® Customer Communications Services has been the key technology implemented by CGB Credit Card Center as part of its Intelligent Collections Project, which aims to increase automation within its collections function. CGB Credit Card Center now uses differentiated collection strategies for existing credit card customers and has implemented a segmentation-based approach, based on customer risk, products and preferences.

Communication to each customer has since become more targeted and personal and is aided by machine learning technology for continual improvement. In addition, CGB Credit Card Center can scale the use of automated collections to flexibly meet the needs of the business.

“CGB Credit Card Center has been a trailblazer for automated collections in China,” said John Chen, managing director, FICO China. “As the country’s economy continues to expand and the spending power of consumers increases, the demand for innovative and quality services from customers will also grow. Banks in China will need to leverage technology such as AI, big data and computing cloud to create a collections function that can perform with high efficiency, scale quickly and deliver a great customer experience. ”

About FICO
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About China Guangfa Bank Credit Card Center
China Guangfa Bank (CGB) credit card is the first real credit card issued by CGB in 1995 and the first credit card to realize profitability. As the key brand for CGB, CGB card leads China’s credit card market with its customer-orientation and innovation. Up to now, CGB credit card has issued more than 50 million cards, its card circulation ranks the second among China’s shareholding banks; its credit balance has exceeded 300 billion yuan, average card consumption and card activation rate also lead the industry.

CGB credit card has won a number of awards, including, the "World’s/Chinese most trusted/Top Ten Bank Cards", "UnionPay Credit Card Market Development Award", and "Asia Pacific Best Customer Service Award”. It is the first bank to launch “Transaction Safeguard” to protect assets safety, and “Transaction Switch" to offer autonomous safety control by cardholders. Its initiative of "Guangfa Day" has also been well received by customers through collaborating with different industry alliance in marketing.

Learn more at http://www.cgbchina.com.cn