Leading Edge R&D:

HNC SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES MONEY LAUNDERING SOLUTION

HNC Software Inc, a leading provider of Customer Insight software, announced the availability of Falcon for Money Laundering, a sophisticated software solution for banks to protect themselves from the significant damages of money laundering. Money laundering poses a considerable threat to the world's financial institutions in the forms of severe regulatory fines, legal action, higher insurance premiums, and tarnished reputations.

Falcon for Money Laundering was developed using proven technology from HNC's Falcon, a leading neural network-based predictive software solution for detecting payment card fraud. HNC's money laundering detection system provides financial institutions a flexible framework to utilize powerful profiling analytics to examine transactions and detect money laundering activity, meet regulatory requirements, manage operational risk, and provide greater insight to objectively know their customers.

"The world's leading banks and credit card issuers have come to rely on our expertise to uncover fraudulent activity and protect them from crime. After more than a decade of developing advanced neural network solutions for the financial services community, addressing the problem of money laundering is a natural next step for us," said Michael Chiappetta, group vice president of customer analytics for HNC Software. "Money laundering has been and continues to be a significant hindrance to the world's banking community, and our new solution offers the most advanced technology available to battle this problem, which is growing across the globe."

Experts agree that money laundering poses a serious, growing threat. A recent report by TowerGroup labels money laundering as "one of the world's largest businesses" and notes that roughly $1 trillion is laundered annually; about half of which passes through the United States. The report says the problem will grow especially in Europe and Latin America in the years ahead. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials have established that criminals are actively targeting institutions that have weak or ineffective money laundering countermeasures.

"Criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their money laundering tactics and use of advanced technology, making money laundering progressively more difficult to detect. In addition, as Web-based payment products and services expand, the opportunity for new and creative money laundering activities will continue to increase," said Breffni McGuire, senior analyst with TowerGroup. "Neural network solutions, especially those incorporating rules-based engines, offer financial institutions a very powerful tool to understand customer behavior and differentiate between legitimate and potentially criminal activity."

The regulatory environment for money laundering is also evolving, and more stringent enforcement of laws is gaining momentum. Penalties against US banks have ranged from a few hundred dollars to almost $5 million (US). International banks have fared much worse -- penalties have ranged as high as $15.3 million (US).

For institutions to remain compliant, they need to possess a flexible monitoring system to identify unusual activity in a timely manner, enable compliance with local money laundering laws, and facilitate reporting to the appropriate agencies. Falcon for Money Laundering is a complete solution that ensures compliance, increases efficiency, mitigates operational risk, and protects banks from regulatory intervention.

About HNC Software Inc

HNC Software is a leading provider of Customer Insight solutions including decision management and customer analytics software that enable companies in the financial, telecommunications, e-commerce and insurance industries to acquire, manage and retain customers. For more information, visit www.hnc.com or contact Rob Jensen at 858-799-8122.

Contact HNC Software, Rob Jensen, 858-799-8122, erj@hnc.com.