Strategic Analytics Reports Stress Test Achievements

SANTA FE, New Mexico - Strategic Analytics Inc., the leading provider of stress testing and forecasting solutions for retail lenders, today disclosed that its LookAhead(TM) software was used successfully by U.S. banks to complete stress tests for federal regulators. Strategic Analytics software and services are used by 8 of the top 10 banks with the largest U.S. consumer loan portfolios, according to American Banker.

Several major banks told Strategic Analytics that using LookAhead(TM) software to estimate losses under the government-mandated Supervisory Capital Assessment Program scenarios yielded valuable insights in an efficient and robust analytical process. “LookAhead enabled us to predict the impact of SCAP macroeconomic scenarios on losses in our retail credit portfolios with high efficiency,” a credit risk executive said. “Moreover, we could easily incorporate into the stress tests useful measures of originations quality and other key factors that traditional methodologies can’t handle effectively.”

“Customers’ success in using LookAhead to complete SCAP stress tests demonstrates the unique value of Strategic Analytics software,” said Joseph L. Breeden, President and Chief Operating Officer. “LookAhead was specifically designed to improve retail lenders’ stress testing and forecasting capabilities. It has had proven success analyzing mortgage and consumer credit portfolios for customers around the globe.”

In published research, Breeden has observed that traditional approaches to stress testing fail to accurately quantify the dynamics that drive portfolio performance and that both macroeconomic and quality factors are critical to explaining the current crisis and its future evolution. In 2005, LookAhead analysis of industry-wide U.S. mortgage data showed that the quality of new originations was deteriorating even though the economy was relatively unchanged. By 2006 and 2007, the new loans being originated were of dramatically worse quality than previous originations, and Strategic Analytics’ analysis indicated that the mortgage market was heading for an enormous collapse.

The fall in house prices beginning in 2007 meant that distressed loans could no longer be rescued by refinancing. While other modeling methods showed no visible stress until 2007, when housing price depreciation was evident, Strategic Analytics’ approach provided correct predictions of loan losses two years earlier. Similar patterns of deteriorating origination quality have also been observed in all categories of home equity, auto loans, credit cards, and other consumer loans.

Breeden commented: “The global recession that began in 2008 exacerbated stresses on the poor originations of 2005-2007. The problems actually began years earlier in the quality of loan originations, and are now affecting all outstanding loans in every category. Strategic Analytics’ analysis showed that dramatic increases in delinquency and default rates were baked into lenders’ portfolios and pools of securitized loans, and were amplified - with severe consequences - by the deteriorating economic environment over the last 24 months. Had these lenders been relying on Strategic Analytics for their stress testing and portfolio forecasting instead of the traditional models, these problems would have been uncovered sooner.”

For more information on Strategic Analytics, please visit www.strategicanalytics.com. The research paper mentioned above can be found at: www.journalofriskmodelvalidation.com (Breeden et al., Volume 2 Number 2, Summer 2008).

For more information: Harlan Flint, Marketing Director, Strategic Analytics Inc. +1-505-995-4754, hflint@strategicanalytics.com. Eric Christensen, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Strategic Analytics Inc. +1-505-995-4736, echristensen@strategicanalytics.com

About Strategic Analytics Inc.: Strategic Analytics provides analytical and forecasting solutions that enable banks, consumer finance companies and mortgage lenders to build and manage more profitable and less volatile loan portfolios. Our software and services are used to analyze over US$2 trillion in retail loans worldwide. www.strategicanalytics.com

Source: Strategic Analytics Inc.

Harlan Flint, Marketing Director, +1-505-995-4754, hflint at strategicanalytics.com, or Eric Christensen, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, +1-505-995-4736, echristensen at strategicanalytics.com, both of Strategic Analytics Inc.