Gordon Grant, majority shareholder and Chief Executive Officer of Finance-IT Ltd, is determined to be one of the entrepreneurs making money out of the recession. He started the firm in 2005 with the aim of producing high-quality software aimed at helping banks identify and serve customer needs. In 2007 Finance-IT Ltd expanded its business interests by setting up the on-line payment firm SecurBuy which now handles 25% of on-line payments in the UK. Gordon is convinced that banks need his firm's services more than ever in the current recession. Finance-IT Ltd software customers include banks in the UK, US and EU.

The current market for customer credit-rating software is dominated by FiFind, software developed by Financial Solution Inc, of New Jersey, US.  Gordon believes that collecting more detailed data about customers - how people use their bank accounts, on-line bill-pay services, debit cards and credit cards - will make predictions of customer default more accurate than those provided by FiFind. Much of the required data could be collected from Finance-IT software already established in banks and over the last year half the Finance-IT computer engineers have been mapping out where these disparate pieces of data can be found. Gordon intends to hire mathematicians and data administrators to design algorithms that draw information from such data.

He has asked Valerie to produce a report using some projected figures to show the minority shareholders how investment in software development could result in increased profits despite the current economic downturn. Valerie has asked you to start work on this.