Fair Isaac (FICO Quick QuoteFICO - Free Report) recently announced that it will host the 6^th FICO Forum Africa on Nov 17, 2022, in Johannesburg. The forum will explore how African financial institutions can use technology and advanced analytical programs to increase top-line growth amidst the cost-of-living crisis after the effects of the pandemic and the increase in financial scams.

In the forum, FICO will portray how it has created a new approach to managing customers at a time when digitization is impacting every aspect of businesses. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, customer care is handled entirely through digital channels. To address this rising trend, FICO will address how its new solutions will help financial institutions provide more personalized customer care.

FICO will also address how financial scams have increased with the rise of digitization, especially in the name of credit card loans and bank deposits. FICO will extensively cover the issue of securely operating businesses in its upcoming forum.

In July, FICO expanded its partnership with Network International to bring fraud protection and credit management solutions to lenders across the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

Network International is a group of companies that provide digital commerce across the MEA region. The group collaborated with FICO in 2017 to offer its customers FICO Falcon Fraud Manager, which serves more than 2.6 billion payment cards worldwide.

FICO’s arrangement of the forum in Africa portrays the company’s interest to further penetrate the country’s market even more extensively to create more customers and generate more top-line growth.

FICO Expands Operations Internationally to Drive Top Line

FICO’s top line is experiencing a negative impact due to interest rate hikes by the U.S Federal Reserve and globally, which is affecting its mortgage origination business operations.

In the second quarter of 2022, FICO’s mortgage origination revenues slumped 23% year over year, and the trend is expected to persist in the coming quarter.

Also, FICO is experiencing increasing competition from the likes of Experian (EXPGY Quick QuoteEXPGY - Free Report) , TransUnion (TRU Quick QuoteTRU - Free Report) and Equifax (EFX Quick QuoteEFX - Free Report) in the credit scoring business.

Experian, TransUnion and Equifax have formed an alliance that has developed a credit scoring product to compete with FICO’s products.

The integration between the three companies may help them to sell similar products to customers at lower prices, which might impact FICO’s business negatively as there is a risk of losing market share.

To address this issue, FICO has been focusing on diversifying its product portfolio, specifically in the software business segment and expanding its operations internationally to cater to a wider customer base.

FICO recently helped the largest Latin American bank Itaú Unibanco avoid losses of more than $20 million a month with its cloud-based fraudulent solutions.

Itaú has been benefiting from the implementation of FICO Falcon fraud manager systems on-premise, which helps it defend customers’ capital and reduce fraud losses.

With the company expanding its operations in international markets like Brazil and Canada, FICO’s software segment revenues are up 7% year over year in the second quarter as it is addressing the rising requirement for fraud protection services.

FICO has also penetrated the African market with its partnership with Network International, which will help the company address a large customer segment in the MEA region, extending from retail bankers to their customers. In the upcoming forum, FICO will be looking to further penetrate the market with its latest customer relations software launches and attract new customers.