More than half of participants rate data quality within their institution as average or worse.

Philadelphia, Pa. (February 9, 2010) - The Risk Management Association (RMA) and Automated Financial Systems, Inc. (AFS) released results of their 2009 joint survey on enterprise data to support credit risk management. Seventy-five global institutions, with headquarters in North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia, completed the survey.

The 2009 survey focused on data quality and approaches to data management. In the survey, 56.8% of participants rated data quality within their institution as average or worse, down from the previous two years surveyed. In 2007, 72.5% of participants rated data quality as average or worse; in 2008, 66.3% did so. European participants rated their data quality higher than their North American and Asian/Australian counterparts.

Among the data management challenges facing institutions are:

1. Striking the optimal balance between reporting all pertinent data and obscuring important messages.

2. Storing data consistently with the ability to easily aggregate along logical hierarchies.

3. Agreeing on common data definitions across warehouse and analysis platforms.

4. Reaching a common understanding of data issues between risk management and the line of business.

The survey also revealed the primary benefits of increasing data quality in support of credit risk management:

1. More timely identification of emerging problems.

2. More efficient capital allocation/utilization.

3. Reduced regulatory and legal risks.

4. Improved transparency in reporting results to the market.

A higher percentage of EMEA banks (Europe, Middle East, Africa) said data accessibility and quality were beneficial in dealing with the credit crisis, compared with institutions from other regions. The majority of EMEA institutions have a heavy investment and longer experience in meeting Basel II requirements.

To download a copy of the executive summary, Click Here. Full results are available to RMA Associate members on the Members Only page of the RMA website, www.rmahq.org.

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-wide approach to risk management that focuses on credit risk, market risk, and operational risk. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pa., 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 over 18,000 risk management professionals who are chapter members in financial centers throughout North America, Europe, and Asia/Pacific. Visit the RMA website 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 the AFS website at www.afsvision.com.

Contacts:

Suzanne Wharton, Associate Director of Credit Risk Analytics, RMA, 215-446-4089, swharton@rmahq.org.

Doug Skinner, Director of Regulatory Compliance, AFS, 484-875-1562, dskinner@afsvision.com.