Abbey National Taps Business Strategy Software From Fair, Isaac

Abbey National plc, the sixth-largest bank in Britain, has selected Decision System software from Fair, Isaac to design and deploy business strategies enterprise-wide.

The bank will initially use Decision System in its origination and account management operations to improve customer satisfaction, service and profitability.

Decision System allows businesses in any industry to deploy, manage and improve their unique customer relationship strategies across product lines, delivery channels and software platforms. Abbey National can quickly design and implement analytically driven decision engines that can be executed in real time to consistently, accurately and automatically make complex business decisions that lead to improved business performance.

The decision to implement Decision System came after a nine-month technical and operational evaluation process of potential vendor software. "The system's flexibility and capabilities make it an ideal solution to support our efforts to automate and improve our customer decisions throughout our operations," said Mike Costello, director of delivery systems at Abbey National. "Decision System will help us build rewarding customer relationships and at the same time improve our operational efficiencies."

Abbey National's reach stretches beyond the United Kingdom. The bank has retail operations in France and Italy, and offshore operations in Jersey, the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Portugal, Hong Kong and Dubai. In addition, Abbey National's wholesale banking arm (Abbey National Treasury Services plc) is a leading participant in the international financial markets.

With Decision System, the bank will quickly realize the most efficient and profitable ways to acquire and serve its 15,000 customers, noted Andrew Jennings, vice president of market development at San Rafael, Calif.-based Fair, Isaac.

Decision engines created using Decision System can be deployed across the enterprise, on mainframe, AS/400, Unix and Windows 2000 platforms. In this way, an enterprise can house their business strategies in a common architecture regardless of target applications or execution environments.