Case Study: Discover Financial Services achieves centralized model risk management and faster CCAR preparation with SAS Model Risk Management

Discover Financial Services improves efficiency, collaboration with centralized model risk management

Discover Financial Services, which relies heavily on statistical and financial models across marketing, underwriting and risk functions, faced rising regulatory scrutiny and an unsustainable, manual process for tracking models across their lifecycle. Model development had proliferated across units, information lived in emails and spreadsheets, and Discover needed a centralized, scalable repository to identify what models were used where, manage model-related documentation and reduce model risk.

Discover implemented SAS Model Risk Management to create a single, self-service model inventory that catalogs models from any tool and links usage, validation, documents and approvals. The platform cut CCAR data preparation from 4–5 weeks to under a week, enabled retirement of outdated models, registered ~500 users, indexed >10,000 documents and generated ~12,000 linkages among ~700 models—freeing staff for higher-value analytics, improving reuse, and making the program more audit- and regulator-ready.

Discover Financial Services

Abhinav Anand

Chief Model Risk Officer