RMA and Strategic Analytics Creating Retail Lending Analytics Course Series

Philadelphia, Pa. (February 23, 2004)—RMA—the Risk Management Association and Strategic Analytics are partnering to create an extensive series of educational courses addressing retail lending analytics. The course series is designed for modelers, analysts, and credit professionals that are involved in the management of large or rapidly growing retail lending portfolios.

The first course, a one-day event to be held in Chicago on May 4, 2004, surveys the range of modeling approaches within a retail lending organization. Special emphasis will be placed on integrating modeling efforts across business functions and loan products. The course is designed for portfolio managers, financial analysts, credit policy and marketing professionals, statistical analysts—anyone desiring a comprehensive vision of the role of modeling in a retail lending organization.

RMA and Strategic Analytics will also present a more comprehensive three-day course beginning June 29, 2004, dedicated to exploring the full range of models used to manage loans and portfolios of loans. Emphasis will be placed on intuitive understanding of the structures that should be present in any good model, the best modeling approaches available for each task, and the breadth of application of these models within the organization. All courses in the series will feature extensive written materials complete with important references and reading lists.

Joseph L. Breeden Ph.D., President and COO of Strategic Analytics, has developed the course series curricula and will lead the inaugural course on May 4. Breeden has presented at a number of financial services conferences including RMA and Thomson conferences, and authored numerous articles, two of which have recently appeared in The RMA Journal. For information about the course offerings and registration details visit RMA on the Web, www.rmahq.org.

About RMA
Founded in 1914, RMA—The Risk Management Association is a nonprofit, member-driven professional association whose sole purpose is to advance the use of sound risk principles in the financial services industry. RMA promotes an enterprise-wide approach to risk management that focuses on credit risk, market risk, and operational risk.

Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, RMA has 3,000 institutional members that include banks of all sizes as well as nonbank financial institutions. They are represented in the Association by 16,000 risk management professionals in North America and numerous cities overseas, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney, and London. Members meet regularly through RMA’s strong chapter network, which consists of more than 125 local chapters across the globe.

About Strategic Analytics
Strategic Analytics develops innovative analytical software that enables our clients to build more profitable and less volatile portfolios. An increasing number of the world's largest banks and finance companies use our LookAheadTM Portfolio Intelligence and Scenario-based Forecasting software to better understand portfolio credit risk, predict long-range customer value, and forecast portfolio performance under a wide range of management and environmental scenarios. The company's Web address is hoy@strategicanalytics.com.

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