Experian and PredictiveMetrics Introduce Small Business Lease Decision Score

COSTA MESA, CA — Experian%reg;, a global business solutions company, and PredictiveMetrics, a leading business-to- business statistical model development company, today announced the launch of the Small Business Lease Decision Score. This innovative product helps commercial leasing company executives more precisely determine the creditworthiness of their small-business prospects by calculating blended risk scores based on both the credit history of a business and the consumer credit files of up to two of the business’s owners.

The Small Business Lease Decision Score helps users predict the likelihood of an applicant incurring 90+ days delinquency or charge-offs within 18 to 24 months of underwriting when the potential risk may be the greatest. Greater accuracy is assured because this new decision tool was developed using actual leasing performance on small-ticket leasing transactions predominantly under $100,000, combined with Experian’s commercial and consumer credit databases containing a number of proven predictors of future risk. The new tool is also ideal for scoring smaller businesses that may not have sufficient commercial data. Scores are provided on easy-to-read, single-page reports, which are accessible through the Internet, CPU or batch processing.

“In today’s turbulent economic times, lessors must see the whole picture of a company’s financial health in order to make more informed decisions,” said Roger Lisabeth, vice president and general manager of Experian’s Business Information Solutions credit services group. “This new score is both powerful and convenient. It offers access to multiple files, adding more precision to the score, and it is available with a single inquiry to Experian.”

Lisabeth said that commercial lessors using the Small Business Lease Decision Score will improve the credit quality of their portfolios based on their own needs, market strategy and risk tolerance level by making more informed decisions during the lease origination process and when conducting account management reviews. The new score joins a suite of scoring tools, including Commercial Lease Decision Score, which enables commercial leasing companies to determine the acceptable decision criteria and customize the decision based on their own needs, market strategy and risk tolerance level.

“This versatile score offers lessors the beneficial capability to score across the customer life cycle, from targeting and acquiring new business, through managing portfolios for maximum profitability,” said Michael Banasiak, president of PredictiveMetrics.

About Experian
Experian® provides strategic support to organizations around the world. It helps its clients target, acquire, manage and develop profitable customer relationships. It does this by combining its advanced decision support and outsourcing services with information on consumers, businesses, motor vehicles and property. Experian works with more than 40,000 clients across diverse industries, including financial services, telecommunications, health care, insurance, retail and catalog, automotive, manufacturing, leisure, utilities, property, e-commerce and government. Millions of consumers rely on Experian’s consumer credit services to meet their financial management needs. Experian is a subsidiary of GUS plc and has headquarters in Nottingham, UK, and Costa Mesa, Calif. It has a 175-year history and unbroken sales growth over the past 22 years. Its 13,000 people support clients in more than 60 countries. Annual sales exceed $1.5 billion. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.experian.com.

About PredictiveMetrics
PredictiveMetrics, which was formally known as Predictive Business Decision Systems, Inc. (PBDS) continuously helps its customers increase their profit margins by providing custom and industry specific credit, portfolio management, collection and recovery knowledge-based decision tools. Leveraging advanced methodologies and statistics to application, accounts receivable, and collection data, as well as credit bureau, financial statement, and marketing data allows companies to turn probabilities into profits. Armed with an analytical staff comprised of statisticians and econometricians who have extensive experience in developing predictive scoring solutions for a variety of applications, products, types of financing, and industries allied with your business experience, PredictiveMetrics provides the most accurate and predictive decision tools in the market today! Established in 1995, PredictiveMetrics is headquartered in Tinton Falls, NJ. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.predictivemetrics.com.