Dear Readers,

Beyond the mature markets of Western Europe are a wide variety of regions and countries, all of which are growing at varying speeds, each in its own specific way.

African countries with a huge variety of business and banking cultures, as well as economical development rates. Middle East, with a mix of highly credit mature markets in the Gulf countries and Israel, for example, and markets with an emerging credit industry, such as Jordan and Syria.  Future PNB leaders of the world economy, such as India, raise challenges of their own - size, fragmentation, and very high sensitivity to cost. Last but not least, clearly very mature and competitive markets such as Turkey, the fastest growing card market in Europe, where strong consolidation has already occurred and will continue in the years to come, with foreign ownership on the increase.

In spite of the huge variety, we can draw some common trends that hopefully will simplify market analysis and help us develop an array of common risk management approaches:

• Very often, institutions that are or have been strong on the corporate banking side are seeking to develop on the retail side, with the usual consequences and needs: Building a denser branch network, switching a corporate culture based on few big ticket decisions to large numbers of small ticket decisions, re-engineering of processes, and the development of automation tools.
• Institutions, which have been active in the retail space are looking with increased appetite towards retail credit in all its forms.
• Institutions seek critical mass to face opening of their markets to foreign investment, usually by acquiring or merging with other local institutions, and hence face challenges such as integrating different corporate cultures, portfolios, strategies and systems.
• Institutions who clearly will not get critical mass are gearing themselves for being acquired (by local or international players) and making the relevant investments that will strongly add to their value in due course
• Basel II requirements have to be taken into account, albeit with a different sense of urgency.

Despite their differences, we can still find some strong common trends in credit markets beyond Europe: SMEs are a very strong development axis, albeit difficult to manage on the risk side. Mortgages, especially in markets where inflation has been tamed, or access to property has been made possible by new legislation. Automotive financing (including two and three-wheelers) is on the rise

Last but not least, all those markets recognise the need for data to make better decisions and track potential fraudulent applications. At Experian we have translated these requirements in the following approaches: Automation on the origination side, to cope with ever increasing volumes. Our platform Transact SM can handle millions of applications per annum, support every line of business or product, allowing a quick time to market. Customer level analytics and strategies, implemented by specific tools like Probe SM, for those more advanced institutions that have paid the price to acquire customers and want to maximise their potential via cross-sell and up-sell initiatives, and at the same time want to control risk behaviour and module collection processes. Fraud prevention tools - to maintain control of this key issue and minimise its impact on the business.

We want to deliver our global expertise and know-how locally, hence the opening of our offices in Mumbai and very shortly in the Gulf Area as well as the reinforcement of our office and teams in Turkey.

Last but not least we are very active in the credit bureau space with potential in India, pending application and approval of a licence, and a strong track record of partnering with local organisations to establish bureaux in Turkey and in the Middle East. Credit bureau data holds the key to tomorrow's advanced analytics, credit bureau scores and the like, which will complement first generation tools on the origination side. It is a path that we have followed successfully in markets that are now deemed ‘mature’. It is a path that we intend to follow in the future mature markets of EMEA, beyond Europe with what we hope will be equal success.

A success that will be shadowed only by the success of our customers.

Jamal Rahal - Business Development Director, Experian-Scorex EMEAI