17.05.2023

Independent research firm confirms: AI Decisioning Platform of German Software Vendor ACTICO is “Strong Performer”

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IMMENSTAAD / CHICAGO / SINGAPORE, May 17, 2023. What the Oscars are to movies, The Forrester Wave™ is to software. Today, independent analyst firm Forrester Research released The Forrester Wave™: AI Decisioning Platforms, Q2 2023. Forrester names German vendor ACTICO a “Strong Performer” among 12 other firms.

The German company, with offices in Chicago and Singapore, develops compliance and credit decisioning software for the finance sector. These applications are based on the award-winning ACTICO Platform, which was evaluated in the Forrester report on the basis of 23 criteria and alongside 12 platforms of other vendors.

ACTICO as a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: AI Digital Decisioning Platforms, Q2 2023. Download the full report.

Finance sector provides instant response in turbulent times with ACTICO Platform

In times of constant political and economic change, banks, insurers and financial service providers need to respond quickly to changes – such as new insights into customer behavior or to changes in financial policy. Users can use the ATICO Platform to adapt guidelines – for example those governing credit decisions, the monitoring of payment transactions or customer communication in real time – within a few hours, test scenarios with altered conditions and then activate these during day-to-day operations. A well-designed framework ensures that no programming knowledge is required. Previously, system adaptations took experts weeks, as external software service providers or the IT department were involved – and this is still the case today at many banks, insurance companies and financial service providers. A look back at the turbulence of recent years gives an idea of how often such adjustments were necessary.

What is an AI Decisioning Platform?

Forrester explains the term as follows: Software that provides enterprise business and technology teams with tools to author, automate, and ameliorate business decision logic in a wide variety of applications by leveraging combinations of decision intelligence technologies such as business rules, machine learning models, mathematical optimizations, and more¹.

AI decisioning platforms come into play when experts consider whether a loan can be granted, whether genetic material is diseased, whether a reimbursement request meets the necessary requirements, what price for goods or services is both attractive and cost-effective in the current competitive environment, …

Highest possible scores in several categories for German Software Engineering

The report’s vendor profile of ACTICO states that their platform tools are designed for business experts to easily define and manage their decisions across the entire lifecycle. Forrester finds ACTICO’s European customer list – which includes Santander, Volkswagen Financial Services and ING – “impressive”, adding that they could increase adoption in this incredibly competitive market by expanding more aggressively into North America. The report went on to state that “ACTICO has strengths in decision logic authoring tools, explainability, application development tools, solution accelerators, and security.” Further, Forrester calls ACTICO Platform a good fit “for customers that are looking to implement one of ACTICO’s solution accelerators, especially for organizations in highly regulated industries.”

“We are delighted that the ACTICO Platform has been recognized in this category as a standalone product, as it is leveraged for various use cases and forms the technological core of our compliance and credit risk solutions” says ACTICO CEO Hans Jürgen Rieder.

Clever integration of machine learning into banking processes

ACTICO customers use AI or machine learning when they check whether a payroll in a loan application is forged, a bank transaction violates applicable embargoes or securities trading shows criminal patterns, for instance. “The fact that we have achieved the highest score possible in the explainability, and security criteria is very important for our customers. After all, they are supervised by various regulatory authorities,” Rieder sums up.

“We take a special approach to artificial intelligence: No matter how our clients’ corporate models are programed or which industry-standard languages they use, they all run on the ACTICO Platform. We call this the ‘model-agnostic’ approach,” reveals Timo Jakob, who as Chief Technical Officer leads software development at ACTICO.

 

¹”The AI Decisioning Platforms Landscape, Q1 2023”, Forrester, March 6, 2023