Cathay has selected Fair Isaac's newest and enhanced release of the TRIAD system, version 8.0, which accelerates and simplifies businesses' development and deployment of profitable account decision strategies at the enterprise and portfolio levels.

As the first portfolio management solution to combine industry-standard account and customer strategy management capabilities onto one platform, Fair Isaac's TRIAD 8.0 system makes it easier for businesses to use relationship-level data in customer decisions. Cathay will be the first financial institution in the world to leverage these expanded single-platform capabilities (previously available as separate platforms, AMT and CMT), which allow users to execute smart credit decisions at either the account or customer level.

The lender will utilize TRIAD initially to streamline account management following its merger with United World Chinese Commercial Bank in October 2003. The solution will help Cathay make consistent decisions that both reduce risk and improve revenue in key business decision areas, including credit facilities, marketing and collections.

"It is Cathay's goal to partner with the best in order to meet our customers' financial needs and grow our business, and Fair Isaac's TRIAD system is the clear leader in portfolio and customer management throughout the world," said Joseph Jao, senior executive vice president at Cathay United Bank. "TRIAD 8 will enable us to gain a deeper and more accurate understanding regarding our portfolio profitability and execute our long-term vision for enterprise-wide customer decision management."

The bank plans to use the incremental revenue and savings from its TRIAD implementation for account management to roll out the solution's strategic capabilities to other business units in 2006, moving from account-level to total strategic customer management. In providing customer management, TRIAD evaluates a customer credit relationship based on the customer's credit interactions across the entire enterprise, rather than relying on account-level data alone to drive decisions.

"Forward-thinking businesses are looking to go beyond strategically managing accounts and make decisions that maximize the complete customer relationship," said Andrew Jennings, vice president of Account Management at Fair Isaac. "Our latest TRIAD version satisfies this need in one package, allowing financial institutions to assess both account- and customer-level information for a full, multi-dimensional view. Cathay's investment in the TRIAD 8 technology will deliver rapid payback and help boost customer and shareholder value."

Fair Isaac's TRIAD 8.0 system features enhancements across the full spectrum of the product to increase the system's flexibility for scoring and strategy design while maintaining operational efficiency and structure to benefit all its users, regardless of scale or platform preference. The upgraded solution features four modular key decision areas - Credit Facilities, Communications, Collections and Authorizations - that can be selected based on client goals and needs. Decision areas can be added in a phased implementation to allow for optimal learning.