Austin Logistics Launches EarlyDetection System to Predict Risk on the First Day of New Account Activity.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Innovative Technology Accelerates New Account Assessments and Eliminates the Credit Card Industry's Vulnerable Six-Month Analysis Gap

Austin Logistics Inc., a leading provider of analytic software and solutions that predict customer value and behavior, today announced its innovative new application -- the EarlyDetection(TM) System. The software system combines intelligent predictive modeling capabilities, aggregation of non-traditional data, and dynamic deployment functionality to allow companies to, for the first time, assess new customers' credit risk and then proactively take risk management actions on the first day of new account activity -- before high-risk accounts build their balances to dangerous levels.

Traditional credit risk assessments, which rely on customer behavior scores, take six months to deliver risk analysis -- leaving creditors vulnerable during the riskiest period in the new account lifecycle. These age-old risk analysis methods are ineffective in today's challenging unsecured credit arena, because they offer no opportunity to strategically implement balance control strategies until it's too late. Plus, due to the excessive risk analysis delays, lenders' ability to competitively enter new markets is severely constricted.

"Today's credit card issuers operate in a marketplace that is both highly competitive and extremely risky," explains Daniel Duncan, President of Austin Logistics. "To stay competitive, companies must continually acquire new accounts, sometimes entering risky non-prime and emerging markets. But to remain profitable, they must also control delinquency and improve early-month-on-books portfolio management.

"Our case studies show that the rate of balance build on the worst accounts is an average of 80 percent in the first 30 days, compared to less than 20 percent for low-risk customers," adds Duncan. "As a result, balance control is impossible on high-risk accounts using traditional behavior scoring, because of the excessive time delay in getting an effective score. The EarlyDetection System eliminates the six-month delay by accelerating risk assessment to day-one of a new account. Using EarlyDetection, companies gain the ability to limit their credit exposure on high-risk customers and, at the same time, safely expand their credit limits to low-risk customers."

The EarlyDetection System accelerates new account credit scoring to day-one of new account activity by aggregating a unique set of non-traditional customer data and processing it through a proprietary combination of predictive models on the first day of new account activity. The result is a fast and effective assessment of the future risk and reward potential for every new customer -- before they can build up bad debt. In response to each account's risk/reward assessment, EarlyDetection's automated deployment features proactively execute companies' preferred balance control strategies.

The EarlyDetection System's predictive analytic models include:

--Risk models. Predict the likelihood that an account will experience late-stage delinquency.

--First-use fraud models. Predict the likelihood that a new account's purchase transactions are fraudulent.

--Revenue models. Predict the profitability potential of new accounts within a set period of time.

These three models automatically pull data from disparate sources, including transaction activity and amounts, standard industry codes, credit bureau data, application data, enterprise relationship data, and other relevant resources.

The EarlyDetection System's risk/reward management deployment functionality gives companies the power to both reduce risk and expand new business opportunities. For example, companies can initially extend low lines of credit to new accounts, then raise credit lines for customers who receive low risk scores on the first day of account activity. In addition, EarlyDetection allows companies to further control high-risk accounts by proactively managing credit limits across the life of the account, and by deactivating fraudulent accounts.

The EarlyDetection System is now available from Austin Logistics and its partners. For more information, visit www.austinlogistics.com or 512-328-8215.

About Austin Logistics Incorporated

Austin Logistics is a leading provider of analytic software and solutions that predict customer value and behavior to drive more profit from every customer interaction -- delivering a proven return on investment in six months or less. The company's products and solutions enable its global client base to make proactive, profit-focused decisions that optimize actions in collections, risk/fraud, and customer loyalty applications. Since 1992, Austin Logistics has been trusted by many of the world's largest financial services companies. The company's products and solutions are also available to insurance and telecommunications operations worldwide. For more information, please visit www.austinlogistics.com.