The provision of relatively risk-free credit is perhaps one of today`s most awesome business challenges.

“True, it is an age-old problem,” says Michelle Beetar, a director of reference agency Experian South Africa. “Yet it has grown exponentially in the past couple of decades, owing to freer access to credit as a means of bolstering turnover.”

Fortunately, she points out, there is a bright light evident in the form of improved technologies such as credit scoring and decision support automation, coupled with access to credit history information.