Enhanced Benchmarking for Retailers

Cape Town, 15 September 2007 ¡V PIC Solutions has unveiled an additional dimension in their South African Retailers Benchmarking Service (SARBS).

SARBS provides a quarterly report which tracks trends across multiple portfolio measures by which subscribers benchmark their credit products against best practices and their retailer peer group. SARBS originates from the long-standing relationship that PIC Solutions has with the clothing retailers in South Africa. The service has been designed to evolve and change as additional measurements and reporting aspects are included. This latest SARBS development is part of the overall drive to constantly enrich and add value to the total offering available to retailer subscribers.

This benchmarking is of strategic value to credit retailers for plotting their progress against their industry peers in changeable economic times. For example, there may be an overall increase in delinquency for the industry as a whole, but when delinquency within one organisation increases at a slower rate; it would suggest that the latter retailer has a better quality portfolio. SARBS enables credit lenders to gauge whether their business is improving or not in relation to the rest of the industry. Credit grantors would not be able to evaluate their performance against the rest of their industry without measuring their performance. Also, meaningful measurement would be impossible without access to accurate data collated and provided by SARBS.

As of September the SARBS report will include a 36+ months on books segment.

This segment contains older, more established accounts where there is a higher likelihood of inactivity and attrition. It is of importance when considering existing levels of South African household debt and the Reserve Bank¡¦s increasing rate of repossessions.

Going forward, subscribers will now be able to analyse portfolio performance and identify gaps in strategic operations across these three important segments:

„X 36+ months on book (the new segment added to the reporting output)
„X 13 to 36 months on book
„X Up to 12 months on book

The 13 to 36 months on book segment of the report covers the established accounts where the majority of activity occurs.

Having a segment for new accounts (those up to 12 months on book) enables SARBS subscribers to track the performance of new business independently of the total population. The National Credit Act of June 2007 has brought pressure to bear on new account volume growth and therefore this section will become even more important in the forthcoming months.

Now used by the five major South African clothing retailers, this service is considered to be the industry benchmark for private label retail cards and reports on 90+% of the cards in the industry.


About PIC Solutions
PIC Solutions provides consumer credit solutions to a wide range of blue-chip organisations. We are experts in the fields of credit, risk and software and have an established track record of success powered by solutions.

Our ongoing commitment is to enable clients to optimise the credit life cycle.

Editorial Contact:
Sarka Svoboda
Marketing Manager
Tel: +27 (0) 21 680-6010
Fax: +27 (0) 21 680-6003
Email: SSvoboda@PICSolutions.com
Web: www.PICSolutions.com