Case Study: La Polar achieves 5–10% lower default loss and revitalized customer relationships with FICO behavioral modeling

The retailer disrupts its business model with data and analytics to revitalize customer relationships

La Polar, Chile’s fourth-largest retailer with more than 40 stores, relied heavily on its store-branded credit card but was shaken by an internal fraud scandal that left the company near bankruptcy. Without a banking partner to provide consolidated credit data, La Polar needed to rebuild customer trust, stabilize credit decisioning, and revitalize the brand.

Partnering with FICO, La Polar implemented a custom behavioral model and scorecard to govern account decisions and identify top customers for a new co‑branded Visa. After about a year of validation the model cut expected default loss by 5–10%, improved profitability, and helped drive stronger customer lifetime value—La Polar anticipates a 5% sales increase, a 10% drop in net delinquencies, and has approved 13 additional models to expand analytics across the customer lifecycle.

La Polar

Paula Aravena

Risk Manager