Key Findings & Highlights:

Credit services have been a focus (pre-BPO services) for Accenture since its start as a separate consulting firm. Today Accenture's credit practice, consisting of consulting, IT services, BPO and software has over 100 clients, of which 60 buy credit BPO services.

Accenture has periodically delivered individual credit BPO services since 2000, but aggressively committed to credit BPO services in 2011, when it acquired Zenta, which enabled it to establish a permanent presence in credit BPO. In 2013, Accenture then acquired Mortgage Cadence to utilize its loan origination platform. Subsequently in November 2013, Accenture acquired Vivere Brazil, a software vendor to provide similar technology enabled BPO for the Brazilian market.

Accenture entered the mortgage and loan (M&L) BPO business because it believes that:

• Lenders will continue to struggle with old systems, inefficient processes, low customer satisfaction, high cost-to-serve per loan, and increased regulatory change in a continuously dynamic and unpredictable market environment
• It can integrate and scale the required capabilities, including SAFE Act licenses on and offshore, to deliver a better, faster, cheaper mortgage loan processing than lenders can do on their own.

Accenture's M&L BPO services are delivered out of its financial services (banking, capital markets, and insurance) operating group, which has FY 2014 revenues of $1,673m (a 10.1% increase y/y). The remainder of this profile focuses on M&L BPO services.

Accenture M&L BPO has delivery centers as follows:

• Residential mortgage lending:
  • Charlotte, NC
  • San Antonio, TX
  • Chennai
  • Mumbai
  • Manila
  • Sao Paolo
• Commercial real estate and non-real estate:
  • Charlotte, NC
  • New York, NY
  • Chennai
  • Mumbai.

Accenture's primary targets for M&L BPO are:

• Residential mortgage:
  • Top 30 mortgage lenders, servicers and strategic opportunities
  • Retail/wholesale/correspondent
• Commercial loans:
  • Top 20 U.S. banks
  • Fortune 100 companies
  • Top REITS
  • Equity investors
  • Pension funds
  • Hedge funds.

Accenture has focused its M&L BPO offerings on a few specific processes heavily centered on collateral support. It acquired much of its collateral support services with the acquisition of Corelogic India.

Accenture has a strong IT services legacy. It intends to support clients and prospects in their stated intention to modernize their mortgage platforms. Accenture believes that the loan processing market is being driven by industry changes, which will require significant reductions in cost and increases in efficiency for successful lenders to remain competitive. Accenture's strategy in M&L BPO is to:

• Target opportunities where clients are willing to change their operations to improve revenue growth and cost to serve per loan, by leveraging Accenture's capabilities
• Target comprehensive services (primarily origination and servicing) which are highly cyclical, to provide operational flexibility for clients to meet very wide swings in transaction volumes
• Target component services where very high volume and specialization can provide economies of scale to clients.