NFFC has a network of more than 500 branches throughout South Korea and specialises in lending to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) associated with the fishing industry. The bank is preparing to comply with the Basel II Internal Ratings Based approach, which it wishes to achieve by the end of 2009. The Algorithmics Credit Advisory team is providing the framework and best practices to help the bank realise this goal.

In addition, the Algorithmics Credit Advisory team will be helping NFFC to improve its lending practices by enhancing its probability of default models. These development efforts will provide NFFC with more accurate measurements of the creditworthiness of its clients and play a major role in it Basel II program.

Hak -Ki Shin, NFFC's Basel II team leader, said "SMEs make up around eighty per cent of our lending portfolio, so it is very important to us to have the best possible probability of default models to assess the creditworthiness of our clients, so that we can accurately calculate how much to lend them and at what interest rates.

"We look forward to working with the team from Algorithmics to grow our business and our profits in the future."

Joe Henbest, Managing Director of Credit and Collateral Solutions at Algorithmics, said, "We are delighted to be working with NFFC and our business partner, Korea Ratings, on this important initiative. We believe it demonstrates the commitment of Korean banks to adopt international best practices for credit risk management, and we look forward to extending our relationship with NFFC and other Korean financial institutions."