This starter kit is bundled with the industry-leading Fico Triad Customer Manager to help card issuers apply analytic precision to credit line increase strategies.

The Credit Line Optimisation Starter Kit enables clients to take their TRIAD credit line increase strategies to the next level of performance, find opportunities for responsible profitable growth and control losses while making the best use of limited exposure. Issuers can rapidly model the credit line decision, set portfolio constraints and objectives, and build decision strategies that optimise those objectives. Many FICO clients have seen improved profit of $8-$12 per card account in 12 months by using decision modelling and optimisation to change credit limits on cardholders.

"The Credit CARD Act passed this year in the US, combined with a challenging economy in markets worldwide, has put tremendous pressure on card profits," said David Lightfoot, FICO vice president for product management. "Many issuers have reduced line increases or abandoned them altogether. Our experience shows that analytically determining credit lines can boost revenue growth even in today's economy, and the CLO Starter Kit makes that easier than ever before."

The starter kit is specifically designed to enable card issuers to develop more profitable strategies in today's highly regulated environment. The starter kit can produce an optimised strategy 3-9 months faster than building your own solution with an optimisation tool. At the same time, the starter kit takes full advantage of FICO's advanced analytic methodology, which has been proven on decision modelling and optimisation projects with more than 50 banks, and includes components to help lenders address new regulations in many countries requiring that customers "opt in" to line increases.

Decision strategies built using the Credit Line Optimisation Starter Kit can be easily integrated into TRIAD, which is used to manage about two-thirds of credit card accounts worldwide. These strategies segment the card issuer's portfolio using analytically derived criteria and thresholds, and assign the ideal credit increase or decrease amount to each cardholder. TSYS, one of the world's leading payments providers, has integrated FICO's credit line optimisation service into its customised TRIAD offering, giving its clients a market-leading advantage.

"We have grown our card portfolio profitably using advanced analytics, including FICO's credit line optimisation services and TRIAD," said Mark Merritt, Chief Credit Risk Officer at Canadian Tire Financial Services, one of Canada's leading lenders and its second-largest MasterCard franchise. "FICO optimisation gives us the precision we need to set the right line for every customer, and their experience in strategy design means we can build the right approach for our portfolio. With the slim margins in the cards business today, we view FICO credit line optimisation as a competitive imperative."