SAS Secures ALM Leadership for Third Year with AI-Powered Platform

CARY, NC – February 18, 2026 – In a powerful affirmation of its market leadership, data and AI giant SAS has been named a Category Leader in all six quadrants of asset and liability management (ALM) by Chartis Research for the third consecutive year. The recognition, detailed in the 'ALM Solutions, 2025: Quadrant Update' report, underscores the critical role of advanced analytics in helping financial institutions navigate an increasingly turbulent economic environment.

This three-peat solidifies SAS's position at the forefront of a sector that has become mission-critical for banks and financial firms. As institutions grapple with fluctuating interest rates, complex regulatory demands, and liquidity pressures, the need for sophisticated, forward-looking risk management tools has never been greater. SAS's consistent performance in the Chartis rankings highlights a strategy that combines decades of industry experience with a powerful, AI-driven technology core.

From Back Office to Strategic Core: The New ALM Imperative

Asset and liability management, once viewed primarily as a back-office reporting function, has been elevated to a strategic imperative for financial institutions. In today's volatile economy, ALM is the central nervous system for managing the intricate interplay of market, credit, capital, and liquidity risks. It is the discipline of balancing risk and return by managing the mismatches between a bank's assets and its liabilities.

This strategic shift is driven by a confluence of factors. Persistent interest rate volatility directly impacts banks' net interest margins and the valuation of their portfolios. Simultaneously, heightened regulatory scrutiny following recent market disruptions has placed an intense focus on liquidity risk management and stress testing. Banks are no longer just required to report on their risk; they are expected to proactively manage it, running complex scenarios to ensure resilience against a wide range of potential shocks.

This new reality has fueled intense demand for enhanced ALM analytics. Financial institutions are seeking solutions that can break down data silos, provide a holistic view of the balance sheet, and leverage predictive analytics to forecast outcomes and optimize strategies. The goal has shifted from mere compliance to achieving a competitive advantage through superior risk intelligence.

A Consistent Leader in a Competitive Field

Chartis Research's latest report confirms SAS's sustained dominance in this critical area. The firm was named a Category Leader across the full spectrum of ALM solutions, including:

• Asset and Liability Management (ALM)
• Funds Transfer Pricing (FTP)
• Liquidity Risk Management (LRM)
• Capital and Balance Sheet Optimization
• Hedging and Risk Management
• Financial Planning and Analysis (FPA)

This clean sweep across all six categories for the third year running is a significant achievement in a highly competitive market that includes major players like Oracle, Wolters Kluwer, and FIS. According to Chartis, which evaluated 32 vendors for the report, SAS's strength lies in the comprehensive nature of its offerings.

"SAS' placement in our RiskTech Quadrants reflects the completeness of its ALM offerings," said Sidhartha Dash, Chief Researcher at Chartis. "SAS' overarching ALM capabilities are based on a strong foundation, including its decades of risk management experience with banks and financial services firms of all sizes, its core data and AI platform SAS Viya, its data management expertise, and deep analytical and modeling capabilities."

Notably, SAS scored highest overall in 'Completeness of Offering' for three of the six categories—ALM, LRM, and capital and balance sheet optimization—and tied for the highest score in FTP solutions. This metric assesses the breadth, depth, and scope of a vendor's capabilities, indicating a robust and mature solution set.

The Technology Powering Proactive Risk Management

At the heart of SAS's success is SAS Viya, its cloud-native AI and analytics platform. The Chartis analysis repeatedly points to Viya as the technological foundation that enables SAS's sophisticated ALM solutions. It is this platform that allows financial firms to move beyond reactive measures and proactively model, simulate, and manage risk.

For liquidity risk management, Chartis notes that the SAS Viya architecture provides a "robust framework for LRM by consolidating disparate data streams into a governed, high-frequency analytical environment." This ability to integrate and analyze vast amounts of data is fundamental to understanding complex liquidity dynamics.

When it comes to capital and balance sheet optimization, the platform "integrates advanced optimization with economic theories of risk and general equilibrium … to help redefine financial institutions' portfolio architecture." This allows firms to calibrate the evolution of credit risk and interest rate volatility simultaneously—a key challenge in modern finance.

Perhaps most tellingly, Chartis observed that "ALM analytics – and behavioral analytics in particular – constitute a key strength for SAS across the board." This highlights the platform's ability to model the complex and often unpredictable behavior of customers, which is essential for accurate cash flow forecasting and interest rate risk modeling.

A Broader Pattern of Industry Excellence

SAS's leadership in ALM is not an isolated achievement but part of a broader pattern of excellence across the financial risk technology landscape. The company also placed No. 2 overall in the prestigious Chartis RiskTech100 for 2026, its third consecutive year in that top-tier position. Within that ranking, SAS earned seven distinct category awards, including for AI for banking, balance sheet risk management, behavioral modeling, and enterprise stress testing.

This consistent, wide-ranging recognition paints a picture of a deeply integrated risk management ecosystem. The same foundational capabilities in data management, AI, and advanced modeling that drive its ALM solutions also underpin its award-winning offerings for credit risk, fraud detection, and regulatory compliance.

"This recognition from Chartis validates the investments we've made in delivering end-to-end ALM capabilities – and SAS' commitment to helping financial institutions stay ahead and minimize risks, not merely react to them," said Stu Bradley, Senior Vice President of Risk, Fraud and Compliance Solutions at SAS. "As the industry navigates shifting interest rate dynamics and economic crosscurrents, SAS gives firms the advanced analytics and AI-powered insights they need to manage cash flow and balance sheet risks proactively, and to turn complexity into a competitive advantage."