Business

Friday July 4, 2008

Banks to get help with products and services

By DALJIT DHESI


SAS Institute aims to improve their control and management

KUALA LUMPUR: US-based SAS Institute Inc believes it is in an advantageous position to help banks weather the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Senior vice president and chief marketing officer Jim Davis said the company had been dealing with banks for more than 30 years and knew the solutions needed to enhance their businesses.

“There has been greater awareness among banks on the importance of software acquisition.

Banks are beginning to look towards predictive analysis in their efforts to implement better control and management systems amid the subprime crisis,” he said in an interview.

Jim Davis

“In the future, we expect banks to put in more effective systems for checks and balances to cope with a credit crisis, and this naturally places us in a good position due to our expertise and predictive analytical software.'' he said in an interview.

According to Davis, the company is involved in every aspect of the financial services business, from marketing to providing complex predictive modelling such as for selling risk-based solutions.

Many banks and insurers worldwide use SAS' risk-based solutions are used by many banks and insurers worldwide to facilitate their Basel 2 and Solvency 2 frameworks.

SAS is the world market leader in business intelligence and analytics software.

At present, more than 40% of the group's revenue comes from the financial services sector. Last year, the group's total revenue stood at close to US$2.2bil, up 15% from 2006.

He noted that the key strengths of the company were the depth and breadth of its products and services.

“More than half of our revenue comes from data management and immigration, and due to our long-term dealings with banks, we have successfully established a significant amount of intellectual property embedded in our applications,” he added.

SAS Institute Sdn Bhd managing director Jimmy Cheah said the company would continue to work with local banks in the area of business intelligence to help them improve their risk management processes.

Some banks in the country that use SAS solutions are Alliance Bank, CIMB Bank, Affin Bank, Public Bank, HSBC Bank, ICB Bank, AmBank Group, EON Bank and Malaysia Deposit Insurance Corp.

Another area of collaboration, Cheah said, was in organisational intelligence. Among others, SAS assists banks in focusing on products and services that are profitable while streamlining those that are not.

Davis said another area of growing importance for banks was fraud, which had impacted the bottom lines of many players globally.

  • E-mail this story
  • Print this story