ILOG launches lending division

Available through ILOG Professional Services, the new practice builds upon ILOG's expertise building business rule applications in the consumer lending and credit space, combining the domain expertise of ILOG consultants with tools and templates that address specific functions within a lending process.

The new practice complements ILOG JRules(tm), a key offering in ILOG's Business Rule Management System (BRMS) product line, and will allow FSIs to more quickly deploy solutions that can render credit decisions in seconds, and reduce the loan processing cycle from months to a matter of days. The announcement was made today at the Mortgage Banker's Association Conference and Expo in San Francisco 24-28 October 2004 at the Moscone Convention Center.

According to Tower Group, a BRMS is essential in lending, which is one of the most complex account acquisition processes in financial services because firms must manage thousands of internal and external policies in mortgage credit evaluation, underwriting and loan pricing. Additionally, FSIs are hindered by many manual processes as well as loan origination and servicing systems that are inflexible and not integrated. To address these issues, FSIs have opted to base their lending solutions on a BRMS, since most commercially-available packaged solutions lack sufficient flexibility and customisation options. BRMS-based lending solutions offer greater accuracy and consistency, through the establishment of best practices and a faster business response time. BRMSs also centralize shared business rules, reduce IT maintenance costs, improve processing speed and reduce time-to-market for new product introductions and price changes. The new ILOG Lending Practice allows FSIs to realise benefits of BRMS-based solutions sooner, including a shorter loan processing cycle and automated credit and program eligibility decisioning.

"Equifax deployed a BRMS to extend the flexibility of our InterConnect product suite, providinroviding Equifax and our customers with the tools and resources to address changing market conditions," said Lisa Fiondella, senior vice president, Equifax Technology Solutions LLC. "We selected ILOG based on its proven track record with other lending institutions. As an information services company and provider of decisioning and analytical tools, Equifax believes that ILOG's introduction of a professional services practice is a welcome development in our industry."

ILOG's new practice targets policy automation and streamlining initiatives related to loan origination, underwriting and servicing. It addresses such functions as eligibility determination, pricing and risk assessment within the lending process, enabling FSIs to bring their lending applications to market faster, while reducing their risks. It includes implementation roadmaps, methodologies and templates, as well as modeling tools, support for industry standards such as MISMO, best practices, and access to the domain expertise that ILOG's professional services team has developed in working with leading lending institutions. The practice complements the expertise of ILOG's system integrator partners that are developing solutions for the customer lending and credit industry, particularly those partners without a Business Rule Management Practice.

Based on proven methodologies, ILOG's professional services and practices address the growing demand for implementations that accommodate customer's existing technology investments while addressing the unique challenges and characteristics of specific business situations. Technology and services offerings that are built on the ILOG JRules platform, ILOG Practices combine templates that address specific functions within the lending process, modeling, methodologies and other features with ILOG Professional Services expertise. ILOG Professional Services works directly with customers to accelerate project deployment by helping design, develop and deploy flexible solutions that meet specific needs.

ILOG has consistently built on its history of product innovation to make ILOG JRules the industry's leading business rule software. For the second year in a row, ILOG was named to the leader quadrant of Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Business Rule Engines. ILOG's BRMS provides a competitive advantage for many strategic business applications. Compliance solutions powered by ILOG JRules monitor high volumes of data in real time, enabling the immediate detection and reporting of faulty or fraudulent information. For business process management, ILOG JRules enables the effective management of the complex, dynamic rules that can number in the thousands for a discrete business process, maximising business agility. ILOG customers include many of the leading lending institutions and financial services companies such as CitiStreet, Countrywide Financial, Equifax, Fannie Mae, MetLife, Option One Mortgage Corp., Radian Guaranty Inc., Visa International, Wachovia, and Zurich Financial Services and other leading Global 2000 companies and governments worldwide.