Nationwide Speeds Up Credit Decisioning by 50% with FICO Platform

LONDON – 11 March 2025 – FICO (NYSE: FICO)

Highlights:

• Nationwide migrated 1.5 million monthly credit decisions across mortgages, loans, and cards to the cloud-based FICO® Platform in just 7 months
• Results include a 50% reduction in the time to make changes to decision components, and a 30% faster process for rolling out new strategies
• Nationwide improved its Promoter Score (NPS), ranking third in the UK and first among high-street financial services providers, according to Forrester Research.
• Nationwide has won a 2025 FICO® Decision Award for Cloud Deployment

Nationwide Building Society (NBS), the UK’s third-largest mortgage provider and the world’s biggest building society, has revolutionized its credit risk and decisioning framework with FICO® Platform. The transformation involved moving to a single, cloud-hosted system for decisioning across mortgages, credit cards, personal loans and current accounts, delivering what Nationwide refers to as 'credit-risk-as-a-service'. Nationwide now uses FICO Platform to process around 1.5 million credit decisions monthly. This has led to a 50% reduction in the time required to update scorecards, decision trees, and other decision components, as well as a 30% faster process for implementing new strategies.

More information: https://www.fico.com/en/fico-platform 

“Transforming a system of this magnitude is no small feat, but the results speak for themselves,” said Andrew Lawrie, tech lead for credit risk at Nationwide Building Society.” We didn’t just move mortgages, loans, and cards to the FICO Platform; we reimagined how we make decisions. Now, changes that used to take weeks can be implemented in days, and our customers are seeing the benefits with faster, more personalized service.”

A Transformation to Meet Modern Banking Demands
Nationwide’s migration to FICO Platform was driven by the need to mitigate the conduct risk associated with an outdated legacy technology stack, to centralize decision-making and align with the corporate strategy to transition to cloud-based services. By leveraging FICO Platform’s orchestration capabilities, Nationwide incorporated external data providers into its workflows, enhancing decision accuracy and delivering tailored customer experiences. This centralized approach eliminated reliance on fragmented systems, enabling a smoother transition to cloud-hosted services.

“With FICO Platform, we’ve moved from a fragmented legacy system to a unified, scalable decisioning framework,” added Lawrie. “This transition has empowered our teams to implement changes faster, minimize risks, and provide customers with faster, more personalized experiences.”

Nationwide achieved significant milestones through its implementation of FICO Platform:

• Centralized Decisioning: Unified decision-making processes across mortgages, loans, and cards, enabling consistent application of policies and strategies.
• 50% Faster Policy Changes: Simplified workflows allow multiple resources to collaborate on changes, reducing change implementation time by half.
• Real-Time Credit Limit Increases (RCLI): Enabled instant credit limit adjustments, improving customer satisfaction and regulatory responsiveness.
• Enhanced Integration Options: Federated Data Orchestration supports seamless integration with external data providers, improving accuracy in affordability assessments and income verification.
• Scalable Rollout: Successfully migrated five products in 12 months, with plans to integrate overdrafts and credit line increases by 2025.

Results that Drive Impact
Nationwide’s transformation has delivered significant operational efficiencies and customer benefits. Updates to decision components, such as scorecards and policy rules, are now 50% faster, and new strategies are implemented 30% quicker, allowing for greater agility. Business teams now independently manage credit risk decisioning, reducing reliance on engineering and simplifying daily processes.

“This transformation wasn’t just about upgrading technology; it was about staying true to what makes us Nationwide — our members,” said Lawrie. “By moving to a unified decisioning platform, we’ve made it easier to deliver smarter, faster decisions that genuinely improve our members’ lives. Whether it’s helping someone secure their first mortgage or offering quicker, more accurate approvals, we’re building a foundation that keeps our members’ needs at the heart of everything we do.”

Driving Customer Satisfaction and Industry Recognition
The transition has not only streamlined operations but also significantly improved customer experience, contributing to Nationwide’s industry-leading NPS ranking.

“A 2024 report by Forrester Research put Nationwide third in the UK for Net Promoter Scores, and first among the UK’s high street financial services institutions,” said Nikhil Behl, head of software at FICO. “This shows the power of the intelligent enterprise Nationwide has built, using FICO technology. 
For its achievements, Nationwide Building Society has won a 2025 FICO® Decision Award for Cloud Deployment.

“Nationwide’s project reflects the precision and expertise required to migrate from legacy systems while maintaining continuity for customers and operations,” said Erin Stillwell, EVP, payment partnerships at Blankfactor, one of the FICO Decision Awards judges. “Their success in implementing a scalable decisioning platform is a testament to their commitment to operational excellence and customer satisfaction.”
To see the full list of 2025 FICO Decisions Awards winners, check out: https://www.fico.com/en/decisionawards

About Nationwide Building Society
Nationwide is the largest building society in the world, serving over 17 million customers, with 16 million of those holding a current account, mortgage, or savings product, making them members of the Society. As a mutual organization, Nationwide is owned by its members, and it focuses on providing banking products and services tailored to their needs. Nationwide employs over 18,000 people, operating from its headquarters in Swindon and more than 600 branches across the UK. Nationwide Building Society (NBS) is a significant player in the UK banking sector, being the third-largest mortgage provider and managing almost £1 in every £10 saved in the country. The Society also holds one in ten of the UK's current accounts and supports landlords and tenants through its buy-to-let business, The Mortgage Works. In addition to mortgages and savings, Nationwide offers a comprehensive range of retail financial products, including credit cards, personal loans, and insurance. Learn more at https://www.nationwide.co.uk/. 

About the FICO® Decisions Awards
The FICO Decisions Awards recognize organisations 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 2025 judges are:

• Regan Goble, risk analytics senior manager at Westpac NZ (Previous Winner)
• Megha Kumar, research vice president at IDC
• Joe McKendrick, analyst and senior contributor at Forbes
• Luiz Pacete, technology and marketing industry influencer
• Ali Paterson, founder and editor-in-chief at Fintech Finance
• Mike Roberts, head of unsecured retail risk at HSBC UK bank (Previous Winner)
• Erin Stillwell, EVP, payment partnerships at Blankfactor
• Allan Tan, group editor-in-chief at Cxociety

The winners of the FICO Decisions Awards will be spotlighted at and win tickets to FICO® World 2025, May 6-9, 2025, at the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida.  

About FICO
FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 200 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 80 countries do everything from protecting 4 billion payment cards from fraud, to improving financial inclusion, to increasing supply chain resiliency. The FICO® Score, used by 90% of top US lenders, is the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the US and has been made available in over 40 other countries, improving risk management, credit access and transparency.

Learn more at https://www.fico.com/en 

FICO is a registered trademark of Fair Isaac Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

For further comment contact: 
FICO UK PR Team 
Wendy Harrison/Parm Heer
ficoteam@harrisonsadler.com  
0208 977 9132