CARY, N.C., June 28, 2005--As a further commitment to the banking industry, SAS(R), the leader in business intelligence, today announced the latest and most powerful version of SAS(R) Credit Scoring. With SAS Credit Scoring, companies can develop predictive models that assist in evaluating the credit worthiness of customers quickly and reliably, thus helping companies minimize business risk and provide more efficient service to their customers.

The software enables banks and financial services organizations worldwide to internally develop, validate, implement and report on credit scoring models faster, cheaper and more flexibly than any credit outsourcing alternative. SAS Credit Scoring is fully integrated with SAS' award-winning data mining solution, SAS Enterprise Miner(TM), providing analysts with an extensive set of predictive analytic tools to support the complete scorecard development process.

CIBC, a leading North American financial institution, recently selected SAS Credit Scoring to analyze credit risk for the company's more than nine million customers. "CIBC found SAS Credit Scoring to be a flexible and powerful solution that will save time and money within the organization," said Sanjiv Talwar, vice president of retail risk management at CIBC. "SAS Credit Scoring will significantly enhance our capability to produce credit risk scorecards and perform advanced analytics on our portfolio. In addition, we will be able to use this solution to help meet the quantitative requirements of Basel II."

The latest version of SAS Credit Scoring is supported by the SAS(R)9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform and enhanced analytics, enabling credit scorecard development through a thin-client application that allows more flexibility for users. The solution features improved performance for interactive grouping and analyses of large datasets, resulting in faster turnaround of credit scores. SAS Credit Scoring is a modern distributable client/server solution that supports batch processing and asynchronous model training; it also includes multithreaded algorithms for faster model development. All projects are presented on the analytical server for collaborative results sharing and archiving purposes.

When using traditional scorecard development techniques, the new solution gives users enhanced options for optimization of variable grouping. The solution also incorporates additional modeling functionality related to logistic regression used for assigning scorecard points. Score code is generated in SAS, C and Java to deploy the model in real-time or batch in either SAS or environments outside of SAS. Also, the latest enhancements of SAS Credit Scoring offer comprehensive audit capabilities that will enable easier compliance with regulatory requirements.

SAS Credit Scoring is now integrated with SAS Credit Risk Management, a comprehensive solution capable of performing credit data management, credit scoring, credit portfolio risk management, regulatory risk-weighed assets and capital adequacy calculations for Basel II. It also provides a credit risk dashboard. By seamlessly exporting data from developed probability of default and loss given default scorecards to SAS Credit Risk Management, SAS Credit Scoring can be used in regulatory and other capital calculations. Banks in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia are already using SAS Credit Scoring to develop Basel II compliance models.

"SAS' philosophy of empowering customers continues with a comprehensive, in-house scorecard development solution that integrates data access and management with scorecard development and data mining for superior reporting," said Naeem Siddiqi, credit scoring strategist at SAS. "The latest version of SAS Credit Scoring is based on SAS' many years of experience in the financial services industry and spans the entire process for credit scoring. The data models specific to financial services allow for faster implementation, reduced project risk and higher ROI. Also, financial institutions can use the knowledge gained for other customer interaction initiatives."

SAS Credit Scoring helps banks reduce write-offs by giving them the capabilities needed to build and maintain an in-house credit scorecard development process. The solution enables lenders to develop, implement and validate scorecards more quickly and inexpensively, with more flexibility than an outsourcing alternative. Banks can then enter new markets more rapidly, as well as maintain acceptable risk levels in existing markets. Using application and behavioral scorecards, banks can assess risk for existing customers and provide a basis for scoring loan applicants for virtually all lending lines including credit card, personal, home equity, mortgage, auto, etc. The solution's in-house modeling capability also allows organizations to verify the accuracy, strengths and weaknesses of external credit models and to enhance their ability to control access to this sensitive information.

For additional information on SAS Credit Scoring, please visit: http://www.sas.com/industry/fsi/scoring/index.html.

About SAS

SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at more than 40,000 sites - including 96 of the top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500(R) - to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organizations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For nearly three decades, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know(R). Visit us at www.sas.com.

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Copyright (C) 2005 SAS Institute Inc. Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.

Kris Balic, 919-531-0624
Kris.Balic@sas.com