Zoot Enterprises Hosts Successful Executive Forum on Consumer Risk

Attendees presented with best practice methods for successfully
mitigating risk
BOZEMAN, Mont.--(Business Wire)--
Zoot Enterprises, a leading provider of advanced instant credit
decisioning and loan origination solutions recently hosted an
executive forum in Chicago entitled, "Consumer Risk in a New
Environment."

Consumers' financial behavior has changed drastically over the
past 18 months based on changes in the economy. Couple those changes
with the current market environment, including the Lehman Brothers
bankruptcy, the acquisition of Merrill Lynch and the bail out of AIG
and the ability to successfully predict consumer behavior to mitigate
risk becomes an increasingly daunting task for financial executives.

"We attended the Zoot Executive Forum to get a better sense for
recent developments in the automotive finance
landscape. The information and perspective shared by industry experts
and the dialogue between fellow attendees was enriching and
insightful. The forum provided a unique opportunity to share ideas
among peers and engage in thought-provoking discussions about the
ongoing challenges we face in today's market. The event exceeded our
expectations," stated Anoop Tiwari, Director, Strategy and Business
Development of Cars.com.

Attendees of Zoot's executive forum were presented with an
overview of the current market, an analysis of how the market spiraled
to current conditions and strategies for success including best
practices for analyzing consumer behavior, predicting risk and
improving loss mitigation policies.

Bobbie Britting, a Research Director in TowerGroup's Consumer
Lending practice - the leading research and advisory service firm
focused exclusively on the financial services industry - examined
emerging trends that will impact businesses and how lenders will
respond. "The consumer lending industry is under severe pressure;
lender income is deteriorating, loss rates are surging, and loan and
sales volumes are dropping. And we can expect to see even more
regulation come out of the current credit crisis," stated Britting.
"It's important for lenders to take advantage of the consumer data
that you have, share information across divisions within your
institution and utilize new data sources to help your institution make
good loans."

"Best practice strategies for mitigating risk, including
incorporating alternative data into decisioning processes, utilizing
champion/challenger testing and implementing innovative technology
with the speed and control to effectively manage risk is extremely
important in today's market," said Tom Johnson, VP of product
development for Zoot. "Good lending opportunities are still out there.
A flexible system tailored to meet an institution's unique business
needs allows the institution to do more with less and implement new
scoring capabilities quickly to respond to market changes."

The Forum concluded with case study examples of successful risk
mitigation strategies implemented by a top-10 financial institution
and a leading online payments provider. The payments provider uses
realtime tools to tighten and loosen its fraud policy on a daily
basis. This not only enables business users to react quickly to manage
fraud risk, but also take advantage of new market opportunities before
competitors. Because of the high incidence of online fraud this
capability is crucial to their business.

About Zoot

Bozeman, Mont.-based Zoot Enterprises provides credit decisioning
and loan origination solutions through a configurable, scalable and
reliable platform to large and innovative U.S. financial services
institutions. Visit http://www.zootweb.com or call 406.556.7555 for
more information.

For Zoot Enterprises
Media Contacts
Andrew McCaskill/Anna Stanley
678-781-7210/678-682-9306
or
Zoot
Eric Lindeen, 406-556-7449
Marketing Director

Copyright Business Wire 2008