Past News and Announcements

• On March 25, 2008, Tom Higgins, Director of Analytics and Decision Services at TransUnion Canada presented "The Impact of Multiple Relationships on Risk Management Strategies". Tom discussed some of the challenges associated with the conventional wisdom - the more relationships you have with a customer, the more profitable they become. Two potential problems with this notion that are often overlooked include a) increased "concentration risk" with multiple relationship customers with a single credit provider and b) circumstances where the conventional wisdom fails, e.g. where multiple relationships do not increase profitability, or even result in smaller returns.

• On January 29, 2008, Careen Foster, Senior Product Manager at Fair Isaac presented on the topic "Evolving Credit Trends Yield Improved Risk Assessment". Careen discussed how the Canadian consumer credit market is evolving through new consumer segments, product variants, market entrants, and shifts in consumer credit usage. She also demonstrated how these underlying trends have changed credit reporting data over time and how predictive FICO® risk models are leveraging those changes for improved risk management.

• On September 27, 2007, Vanessa Giuliani, Director on the Global Security Team at Equifax, presented "Canadian Fraud Trends", highlighting some of the latest trends in identity theft and the rising problem of fictitious identity creation. She discussed some of the proactive measures that can be taken by credit grantors and what the industry is doing in general to mitigate those threats on behalf of the credit granting community.

  In addition, Jeff Rogers, Manager of Product Solutions at Trans Union Canada, presented "Breaches, Compromises, Fraud and Identity Theft – a primer from 40,000 feet", providing an overview of the statistics and mechanics around Data Breach, Data Compromise, Identity Theft and their effects on the industry and the consumer experience. Also covered in this session were issues relating to ease of access to consumer information; our responsibility to safeguard it; dealing with and mitigating the risks and general trends specific to these events.

• On September 25, 2007 Nina Shikaloff, Vice President of Analytic Services at InfoCentricity, presented "Improving Score-based Decisions with Multiple Performance Objectives" and how the highly correlated nature of variables can be leveraged to predict various outcomes (e.g. consumer response, risk and revenue). InfoCentricity uses its proprietary scoring technology to optimize multiple performance objectives. Nina also presented two case studies illustrating the business value of the technology, as well as an overview of the approach.

• The 2007 CSRSA Conference was held in Gravenhurst, ON at the beautiful Taboo Golf Resort and Spa. About 155 credit risk management professionals from the financial services industry enjoyed General and Breakout sessions on a wide array of topics. Derek Holt from RBC provided an Economic update for fiscal 2007-2008. Other sessions included a Fraud Panel, presentation on the results of a survey conducted by Fair, Isaac on ‘Sub-Prime Lending in the Canadian Market’, and two excellent sessions by, Paul Robinson from Canadian Tire on ‘Utilizing Custom Analytics and Scorecards to Serve the Underserved Market’ and Nigel Marhue from Rogers Communications on ‘No Hit Acquisition Strategies’. Refer to the Links and Presentations page to download any of the presentations from the 2007 conference.