JERSEY CITY, N.J., March 1, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Verisk Analytics, Inc. (Nasdaq:VRSK) today announced the acquisition of Strategic Analytics, a leading provider of credit risk and capital management solutions to consumer and mortgage lenders. As part of the Interthinx business unit of Verisk Analytics, Strategic Analytics will provide customers advanced solutions and professional services critical to loss forecasting and the stability of the U.S. residential mortgage market.
"The Strategic Analytics solution and application set will allow our customers to take advantage of state-of-the-art loss forecasting, stress testing, and economic capital requirement tools to better understand and forecast the risk in their credit portfolios," said Kevin Coop, president of Interthinx. "These tools are applicable and are currently deployed in all verticals of consumer lending, including automotive, credit card, and student loans, and mortgages," added Coop.
Through Strategic Analytics, Interthinx will offer various mortgage risk analytics products. The Mortgage Risk Model(TM) (MRM) gives retail lenders access to a comprehensive mortgage loan-level database - incorporating the vast majority of non-agency loans for the residential mortgage-backed securities market. Forecasting technology is available to incorporate significant measures of origination quality, maturation effects, and environmental factors into analytics tests that traditional roll-rate modeling methodologies cannot effectively capture.
The acquisition will also provide Interthinx customers access to the mortgage-backed securities/asset-backed securities (MBS/ABS) Securities Forecasting Service (SFS), as well as accurate cash flow, conditional payment rate, conditional default rate, and loss severity projections for lenders and investors to price and trade mortgage assets with high efficiency.
"Strategic Analytics advanced modeling software uniquely transforms data from one of the largest repositories of loan-level mortgage data into usable business intelligence," said Joe Breeden, president of Strategic Analytics. "We are excited to become part of the Verisk Analytics and Interthinx team. This affiliation will significantly boost our objective of providing mission-critical credit risk management solutions to our customers worldwide."
About Strategic Analytics
Strategic Analytics provides credit risk and capital management solutions to the world's leading consumer and mortgage lenders. Designed specifically for the unique challenges in retail credit modeling, our advanced software applications and professional services enable clients to build and manage more profitable and less volatile portfolios, enhance regulatory compliance, and increase shareholder value. Strategic Analytics helps clients to analyze trillions of dollars in retail loans in countries worldwide. For more information, visit www.strategicanalytics.com.
About Interthinx
Interthinx, Inc., a Verisk Analytics subsidiary, is a leading national provider of proven risk mitigation and regulatory compliance tools for the financial services industry. At every point in the mortgage life cycle, Interthinx helps to assess risk and prevent mortgage fraud and compliance violations. More than 1,100 customers - including 15 of the top 20 mortgage lenders and three of the top five largest financial institutions - employ the company's products and services. Interthinx earned Mortgage Technology magazine's prestigious 10X Award as "a diagnostic and corrective solution of the highest order" for its technological expertise in predictive analytics, data mining, and risk scoring. The Interthinx suite of solutions sets the standard for the industry and directly increases the value of client portfolios. For more information, visit http://www.interthinx.com/">www.interthinx.com.
About Verisk Analytics
Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK) is a leading provider of risk assessment solutions to professionals in insurance, healthcare, mortgage lending, government, risk management, and human resources. Using advanced technologies to collect and analyze billions of records, Verisk Analytics draws on vast industry expertise and unique proprietary data sets to provide predictive analytics and decision-support solutions in fraud prevention, actuarial science, insurance coverages, fire protection, catastrophe and weather risk, data management, and many other fields. In the United States and around the world, Verisk Analytics helps customers protect people, property, and financial assets. For more information, visit www.verisk.com.
The Verisk Analytics logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=6694