LONDON, Dec. 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- HIGHLIGHTS:

• TBC Bank is the first in Georgia to introduce omni-channel originations
• Loan approval rates increased from 50 percent to 70 percent in under 12 months
• Time to market for new products has decreased by 85 percent, and application processing costs have been cut by 50 percent

TBC Bank, a leading Georgian bank, is the first in the country to introduce omni-channel capabilities to improve its originations strategy. TBC customers can start origination processes through a call center and finish them in an ATM, kiosk or branch for ultimate convenience and efficiency.

Named "Best Bank in Georgia" 12 times in the last 14 years, TBC now boasts another award as it has received the 2016 FICO Decisions Award for Customer Onboarding and Management, which recognizes its impressive results.

In less than a year after deploying FICO® Origination Manager, TBC Bank has seen:

• The loan approval rate rose from 50 percent to 70 percent, an increase of 40 percent
• The time to decision a credit application decreased from one business day to 15 minutes
• Time to market for application changes dropped by 85 percent, as 90 percent of the required system changes are done by the in-house development team
• The cost to originate a loan decreased by 50 percent due to lowered manual review processes
• The overall level of automation increased from 15 percent to 90 percent

"Our system, implemented in 2007, couldn't support changes required to meet business targets," said Giorgi Alibegashvili, TBC Bank's strategic project manager. "In 2015, we revamped our originations platform with FICO technology, to cut loan decision times, reduce costs, and make the originations process more efficient. By implementing FICO's cutting-edge technologies along with straight-through processes and better risk strategies, we have doubled sales in unsecured loans and gained significant advantages in a highly competitive market."

"Developing a fully omni-channel, seamless process is very challenging," said Nicole Sturgill, principal executive advisor, CEB TowerGroup, one of this year's awards judges. "Being the first in the country to do so requires extra effort, as customers have to be educated and made comfortable with the new process. TBC Bank's increased sales and automation results definitively highlight the benefits to be gained from an omni-channel solution."

About the FICO Decisions Awards

The FICO Decisions Awards recognize organizations that are achieving remarkable success using FICO solutions. A panel of independent judges with deep industry expertise evaluates nominations based upon measureable improvement in key metrics; demonstrated use of best practices; project scale, depth and breadth; and innovative uses of technology. The 2016 judges are:

• Dan Ariely, expert on human behavior, author of Predictably Irrational, and Duke University Professor of Behavioral Economics
• Jim Bander, national manager, Decision Science, Toyota Financial Services (2015 winner)
• Ken Elliott, global director of Analytics, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
• Bill Fearnley, Jr., research director, Compliance, Fraud and Risk Analytics, IDC – Financial Insights
• Petr Kapoun, retail risk director, Česká Spořitelna (2015 winner)
• Dr. Dalvinder Singh, editor, Financial Regulation International
• Nicole Sturgill, principal, Executive Advisor, CEB TowerGroup

About FICO

FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956 and based in Silicon Valley, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 170 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 100 countries do everything from protecting 2.6 billion payment cards from fraud, to helping people get credit, to ensuring that millions of airplanes and rental cars are in the right place at the right time.

Learn more at www.fico.com.

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SOURCE FICO