Does the rule list the Red Flags? The Identity Theft Red Flags Rule provides several examples of Red Flags in four separate categories: 1. alerts and notifications recieved from credit reporting agencies and third-party service providers; 2. the presentation of suspicious documents or suspicious identifying information;   3. unusual or suspicious account usage patterns; and 4. notices from a customer, identity theft victim or law enforcement.    

Optimization is a very broad and commonly used term today and the exact interpretation is typically driven by one's industry experience and exposure to modern analytical tools. Webster defines optimize as: "to make as perfect, effective or functional as possible". In the risk/collections world, when we want to optimize our strategies as perfect as technology will allow us, we need to turn to advanced mathematical engineering. More than just scoring and behavioral trending, the most powerful optimization tools leverage all available data and consider business constraints in addition to behavioral propensities for collections efficiency and collections management. A good example of how this can be leveraged in collections is with letter strategies. The cost of mailing letters is often a significant portion of the collections operational budget. After the initial letter required by the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act (FDCPA) has been sent, the question immediately becomes: “What is the best use of lettering dollars to maximize return?” With optimization technology we can leverage historical response data while also considering factors such as the cost of each letter, performance of each letter variation and departmental budget constraints, while weighing the alternatives to determine the best possible action to take for each individual customer. n short, cutting edge mathematical optimization technology answers the question: "Where is the point of diminishing return between collections treatment effectiveness and efficiency / cost?"  

Currently, financial institutions focus on the existing customer base and prioritize collections to recover more cash, and do it faster. There is also a need to invest in strategic projects with limited budgets in order to generate benefits in a very short term, to rationalize existing strategies and processes while ensuring that optimal decisions are made at each client contact point. To meet the present challenging conditions, financial institutions increasingly are performing business reviews with the goal of evaluating needs and opportunities to maximize the value created in their portfolios.  Business reviews assess an organization’s capacity to leverage on existing opportunities as well as identifying any additional capability that might be necessary to realize the increased benefits. An effective business review covers the following four phases: Problem definition: Establish and qualify what the key objectives of the organization are, the most relevant issues to address, the constraints of the solution, the criteria for success and to summarize how value management fits into the company’s corporate and business unit strategies. Benchmark against leading practice: Strategies, processes, tools, knowledge, and people have to be measured using a review toolset tailored to the organization’s strategic objectives. Define the opportunities and create the roadmap: The elements required to implement the opportunities and migrating to the best practice should be scheduled in a phased strategic roadmap that includes the implementation plan of the proposed actions. Achieve the benefits: An ROI-focused approach, founded on experience in peer organizations, will allow analysis of the cost-benefits of the recommended investments and quantify the potential savings and additional revenue generated. A continuous fine-tuning (i.e. impact of market changes, looking for the next competitive edge and proactively challenge solution boundaries) will ensure the benefits are fully achieved. Today’s blog is an extract of an article written by Burak Kilicoglu, an Experian Global Consultant To read the entire article in the April edition of Experian Decision Analytics’ global newsletter e-news, please follow the link below: http://www.experian-da.com/news/enews_0903/Story2.html