MINNEAPOLIS — FICO recently announced the launch of an enhanced solution to help lenders improve collections and recoveries.

The new product, FICO Debt Manager version 8.0 is, what officials call a complete redesign of the company's core collection system, offering new analytic and adaptive capabilities to help lenders accelerate collections and reduce operating costs.

Part of the reasoning behind the system is to help collection departments cope with higher delinquency volumes. Among its abilities, the new solution is one of the first collection systems to integrate adaptive control technology, built-in analytics and events-based design, which can help organizations to design, test, compare and continually refine their strategies to improve collection effectiveness and respond to real-time changes, according to the company. 

"FICO Debt Manager 8.0 is much more than a product upgrade," said David Lightfoot, FICO vice president of decision management products. "We rebuilt it completely to address the new reality that lenders face in trying to collect what they are owed, avoid charge-offs and reduce attrition. Lenders can expect to see real productivity gains as well as strategic advantage from deploying this product."

The company also noted that a new user interface makes the 8.0 version easier to learn and use than its predecessors, which can result in productivity improvement. The system also eliminates the need for batch processing, which can help collectors avoid down-time or calling on customers whose payments posted that day.

Discussing the new product in greater detail, officials said the 8.0 version is built entirely on a services-oriented architecture that can allow for faster and easier upgrades, and help to eliminate the "rip and replace" cycle, in addition to lowering the cost of ownership.

The services-oriented architecture can allow for sharing of data with other FICO applications across the credit lifecycle.

"Tighter operating margins, protracted recovery and changes in revenue dynamics make it essential for lenders to re-examine their debt management systems," explained Brian Riley, research director at TowerGroup.

"Lenders must consider the full scope of the customer relationship plus the latest developments in adaptive control, analytics and service-oriented architecture as they align their collection platforms to this decade's business requirements," he concluded.