“Responding to demand in the market, we are moving fast to build an integrated cloud computing operation. We are adding Europe’s first Cloud Computing Centre at Dublin and more facilities into a network of existing centres in China, Vietnam and the U.S. The centres can bring skills and expertise to serve our clients in building their own new enterprise data centres,” said Dr. Willy Chiu, Vice President of High Performance On Demand Solutions, IBM Software Group. With such a network of centres, Dr. Chiu pointed out, “We will also address the need for open interoperability standards.”

To make matters worse some in the US financial services industry have blamed Fair Issac’s flagship FICO credit scoring system for failing to provide lenders with a clear view of a borrower’s ability to repay loans and the probability of default.

Greene has defended the product – which is reportedly used by 80% of mortgage lenders – and told BusinessWeek in February that the FICO scores have not caused or contributed to the subprime mortgage problem and lenders that followed traditional underwriting standards “steered clear of subprime issues”.

Despite this defence, Fair Isaac is overhauling the credit scoring system and says FICO 08 will be a better predictor of customer behaviour. However it is thought that the upgraded version is not likely to be available until later in the year.