What Does the Chief Risk Officer Want for Christmas?

After a hectic 2016, chief risk officers will be hoping for a quiet wind-down to the year and a high-performing, risk-managed 2017. But what do they need this Christmas in order to have a successful 2017?

Top of each CRO’s wish list is speed. Companies need to accelerate customer onboarding and are continuously striving to improve the customer experience. Credit risk decisions in seconds would support faster application processing and underwriting.

Another desired gift would be independence – a successful collaboration between risk analytics software provider and client equips the credit provider or lender to make changes and additions to processes independently. To compete, companies need to develop, test and go to market with solutions rapidly and want to avoid continuous spend on external development. A user-friendly interface and the right training sets companies up to make their own changes to an existing offering in as little as a day.

Flexibility is another that would make the shortlist. Everything is about data these days. Credit providers and lenders need access to more of it; they want to analyse it automatically and use it for faster, better risk decisioning. But they’re not making the most of it if integration with service bureaus takes weeks or months. Instead, integration with structured and unstructured data should take a matter of hours.

Automation was a key trend in 2016 and CROs will want more of it for 2017. Manual loan origination processes hold companies back; streamlining and end-to-end automation makes for a more efficient, less error prone result.

Last but not least: compliance. Regulation is a fact of life; an adaptable, agile risk decisioning solution helps companies keep on top of the complexity. A flexible platform supporting rapid process updates helps credit and lending providers stay on top of changes.

Efficient credit and loan application processing and underwriting is central to lenders meeting customer expectations all year round; providers will be looking to start the year as they mean to go on with quick and effective credit risk analytics and decision-making. Here’s to hoping each Christmas list gets fulfilled for a prosperous 2017.