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SAS Press Series» Author Interview

Coauthors Clark Abrahams and Sunny Zhang discuss their new book Fair Lending Compliance: Intelligence and Implications for Credit Risk Management with Authorline.

• Authorline (AL): What was your motivation for writing your book?
• Clark Abrahams (CA) and Sunny Zhang (SZ): We wanted to assist lenders to improve both their compliance performance and credit risk management. We saw opportunities for significant advancement through innovation and technology. We anticipated the subprime crisis and observed increasing concerns surrounding unfair/predatory lending practices. The book offers concrete solutions to these pressing issues.

• (AL): Who are you targeting with your book?
• (CA) and (SZ): This book is intended for a very broad audience, which includes Chief Compliance Officers, Chief Credit Officers, Chief Risk Officers, CMOs, CEOs, CFOs, credit and compliance risk managers, and information technology (IT) professionals in financial institutions. This book is also intended for regulators, lawyers, legislators, and enforcement agencies, as well as researchers and academicians. In fact, all consumers can improve their financial literacy by reading this book.

• (AL): What features of the book are you especially pleased with?
• (CA) and (SZ): Many new ideas and methods, coupled with numerous practical examples, are showcased in the book. In particular, we introduced an entirely new paradigm for granting credit that is more comprehensive, realistic, and sensible than the prevailing credit scoring-based approaches.

• (AL): How will your book benefit SAS users?
• (CA) and (SZ): Our book
  1. Shows how SAS technology can help financial institutions meet their key fair lending/HMDA challenges and enhance credit, compliance, and financial performance.
  2. Demonstrates how various SAS solutions and tools can be deployed to produce intelligence for fast and thorough detection and control of potential compliance and risk exposures in a transparent fashion.
  3. Helps customers understand how various SAS statistical modeling techniques can be applied within a business context.
  4. Explains how compliance performance and risk management are related and how customers can balance the two to their advantage at the enterprise level.
  5. Describes some of the analysis frameworks and methodologies used in SAS solutions, including SAS Fair Banking.
  6. Describes why model validation and life-cycle management are critical and how they can be addressed with SAS solutions, including SAS Model Manager.

• (AL): How did you decide to coauthor the book? How did you divide your responsibilities?
• (CA) and (SZ): This type of work requires a mastery of both theory and practice in applying scientific and engineering frameworks in the business setting. The authors' training and experience complement each other well in that regard.

• (AL): What were some of the joys of writing this book?
• (CA) and (SZ): Sharing what we have discovered is nearly as rewarding and exciting as making the discovery itself. In particular, we enjoyed using practical examples to demonstrate innovations.

• (AL): What did you learn while writing this book that would be important for other authors to know?
• (CA) and (SZ): We learned that writing a book demands much time and effort to communicate deep concepts in a simple and effective manner. Authors are responsible for researching what others have done and showing how the work reflects and addresses current thinking in the field.

• (AL): How did you decide to publish with SAS?
• (CA) and (SZ): SAS has an excellent reputation with 4.5 million users worldwide, and that affords substantial exposure to problem-solving business professionals. SAS Publications and SAS Library Information Services enjoy outstanding reputations in their respective areas and we knew that we could count on nothing less than the best.

• (AL): Your book will be going to the printer in just a few weeks. How does it feel to be in the home stretch of such a long project?
• (CA) and (SZ): We have a deep sense of accomplishment. We are grateful for the support and encouragement from our families and colleagues.

• (AL): What advice would you give to potential authors?
• (CA) and (SZ): Writing a book requires serious commitment and passion for a subject. The end results are worth the effort and SAS Publications provides help along the way.

• (AL): How were you able to balance your time between your career and writing this book?
• (CA) and (SZ): We made commitments in the very beginning and set expectations with our families relative to our availability during the effort and how long the overall process would take. Our families accepted that we would be unable to be with them most weekends over the many months of working on the book.

• (AL): When you aren't writing or consulting, how do you like to spend your free time?
• (SZ): Keeping involved with my three children's (ages 17, 9, 7) various activities (sports, Boy Scouts, music, and dancing).
• (CA): Spending time with my wife, family, and friends and pursuing hobbies (trumpet, biking, kayaking, and chess).

Clark Abrahams is director of Fair Banking at SAS where he leads business and product development. He has over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining SAS in 2003, Abrahams was the Chief Risk Officer for Fidelity National Corporation. He has also held positions with Bank of America (Senior Vice President --responsible for asset/liability management, credit policy, compliance, and information technology), as well as with Fair Isaac & Co., Standard Oil of Indiana, The Bank of California, and Barclays Bank. He is a frequent speaker at events sponsored by the American Banking Association, American Conference Institute, Bank Administration Institute, International Institute for Research, and serves on an advisory council of the Brookings Institution's Urban Markets Initiative. Mr. Abrahams graduated from UC Berkeley and earned an MS in Engineering from Stanford University, and is a member of CFA Institute.

Mingyuan Zhang is a solutions architect for SAS Financial Services. Over the last 10 years with SAS Institute, he has successfully developed and implemented many economic forecasting, data mining, and risk management solutions for various industries. Prior to joining SAS, he served as an economic & financial analyst for a leading telecommunications consulting firm. Mr. Zhang earned an MBA from State University of New York at Buffalo and Ph.D. in Economics from Kansas State University, and is a member of the American Statistical Association.