RMA/AFS Risk Analysis Service Launches Commercial Real Estate Offering
CONTACTS:
| Suzanne Wharton, RMA
Director swharton@rmahq.org (215) 446-4089 |
Doug Skinner, AFS
Director dskinner@afsvision.com (484)-875-1562 |
RMA/AFS Risk Analysis Service Launches Commercial Real Estate Offering
Credit Risk Benchmarking Service Supports Expanded Industry Needs
EXTON, PA, September 12, 2006 — The Risk Management Association (RMA), in alliance with Automated Financial Systems, Inc (AFS), announced this week the expansion of their credit risk benchmarking service to the commercial real estate line of business. The Risk Analysis Service currently provides reporting and analytics comparing participating banks' credit risk profiles to those of the industry and to self-selected peer groups by industry, geography, loan product, deal size, collateral type, and vintage. The Service's database contains over half of all middle market Commercial and Industrial loans in the U.S., representing over $800 billion in outstandings and is now being rolled out in Europe.
Because of the specialized nature of Commercial Real Estate assets, the Service now offers a wholly segregated database and dedicated reporting modules focused on the needs of the commercial real estate market. The Service is intended to enhance sound risk management practices within the industry and help participating institutions identify pockets of exceptional credit risk by providing consistently prepared, industry standard benchmarks in commercial real estate lending. The Service will provide information that can be used to gain insight into loan default and loss trends, as well as to refine risk-rating parameters.
The new commercial real estate deliverable has been under development for the past several months with the guidance of an industry steering committee consisting of representatives from several of the country's leading financial institutions. The committee's input has helped shape the design, data elements, and analytic capabilities of the Service, insuring its relevance to industry standards and to managerial and regulatory reporting needs.
â??We are very pleased to be able to provide our members with a standard by which they can perform self-assessment and enhance their risk management capabilities in an area of lending characterized by rapid growth, new product introduction, and highly competitive pricing," said Maurice H. Hartigan II, president and CEO of RMA. "We believe it serves our members' best interests to have access to this rich database of commercial real estate information on which to build sound credit policy."
AFS president John Shain called the new initiative "groundbreaking in its ability to support comparative analysis of credit risk in commercial real estate. Leveraging the past three years' experience in delivering the Service to over 20 major U.S. financial institutions, we are looking forward to taking the Service to this new level in support of the Commercial Real Estate business line."
For additional information on the Risk Analysis Service for Commercial Real Estate, please contact Suzanne Wharton at RMA (215) 446-4089 or Doug Skinner at AFS at (484) 875-1562.
About RMA
Founded in 1914, the Risk Management Association is a not-for-profit, 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 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 17,000 risk management professionals who are chapter members in financial centers throughout North America, Europe, and Asia/Pacific. Visit RMA on the Web at www.rmahq.org.
About AFS
Automated Financial Systems, Inc. (AFS) is an information technology and software development company providing products and professional services exclusively to the financial services industry. Its mission is to work with forward-looking financial institutions to build the industry-leading global franchise for lending processes based on a straight-through processing model and on-demand technology and services. AFS assists clients by combining the lending applications, execution expertise, and management information to mitigate risk, reduce costs, and increase revenue. The firm is headquartered in Exton, PA; its European subsidiary, Automated Financial Systems GmbH is located in Vienna, Austria. For further information, visit AFS' website at www.afsvision.com.
