The Analysis News & Opinions


‘Limit to the extent of true optimisation in the UK’


Collections operations must increase the use of optimisation according to a senior industry analyst. Speaking at a debate run in association


with FICO, last month, Bruce Curry, EMEA collections & recovery business lead at FICO said: “I have been disappointed to see optimisation has been very slow to be taken up in the collections space. Where I have seen it work well has been in customer contact and restructure optimisation, although there are between 11 and 16 touch points in a collections cycle that you could optimise. “Restructuring can work very well – I worked with a client in the Ukraine, where


they had a terrible economy and systemic corruption, they were getting a 10% take up on restructures and a 37% post-restructure default rate; this is not uncommon in any of our markets. We applied analytics to it: they raised restructure take up rate to 40% and their post-restructure default rate reduced to 9%. It is about aligning the right things. “People do not do the analytics to say ‘if I


have nine different instruments that I can offer a customer as a restructure, if I have a policy that says I can do a term extension for three months, that will fit maybe 3% of my customers. But if I can say that, of the nine instruments, three of them allow me to


Call to work together


The Credit Services Association has welcomed support for fair treatment for people struggling with their mental-health, but expressed concern over a characterisation of its members as being ‘anti-consumer’. It has called upon the debt-charity sector


to work more closely with its members in supporting those with mental-health issues, and in bringing more cases to their attention if there is evidence of a customer not receiving fair treatment. It highlighted the work that its members


have done in supporting the consumer, and in particular its Code of Practice already


May 2018


includes a 30-day ‘breathing space’ with the option for a further 30 days if needed, for those identified as being vulnerable. Chief executive officer, Peter Wallwork,


said: “The news that the government is introducing a ‘Breathing Space’, and has accepted the ‘Recovery Space’ scheme proposal, is welcome, and we overwhelmingly support both, but it should not be forgotten that such guidance has already been part of our members’ best practice for some time and the key to both will be how they are implemented to ensure it does not overcomplicate the customer experience.”


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provide what the customer knows will be affordable, I will get a high take up. And, as I know I can do any one of those three, I can also assess which one of those has the best NPV for my portfolio’. I know all the major initiatives like GDPR and new regulations are sapping the ability for people to sit back and have the resource and the bandwidth to go ‘we will really do this smart’.” Nick Cherry, chief operating officer of


Phillips & Cohen Associates, added: “Part of the restriction is certainly client SLAs and different regulatory requirements. So to really get the maximum bang for your buck, you need to implement a digital strategy as a joined-up solution, but, inevitably, when you are doing that alongside running the business, you face prioritisation challenges, meaning that you often take the low-hanging fruit and that might be one option such as web chat, so strategies can become piecemeal. “There are certain agencies globally


which are digital-only and they cherry pick their clients to enable them to maintain this approach. They will not partner with any client that has restrictions that limit their digital strategy, but this enables them to be very lean. As an existing business, you cannot do that; it is not the real world. “Trying to digitise the business alongside


everything else that you have, and alongside all your client requirements and different regulatory requirements, is difficult.”


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