In Focus Consumer Credit
Taking ‘feet off the street’
Last month, Just launched the industry’s first-ever virtual enforcement solution, whereby qualified and trained enforcement staff will contact debtors from their desk, rather than in the debtor’s home. CCR spoke to Jamie Waller, chairman of Just, to find out more
CCR:What was the initial inspiration for virtual visits – why did you think that it was important? JW: Obviously COVID-19 is a good reason to step back and have a look at the effects that we, as a business, are having on people, because it is going to create a lot of financial vulnerability. But even putting that to one side for a moment, it my responsibility, as an entrepreneur to always look for ways to innovate and change, to look for ways to move my business, the sector, and whole industries on, because otherwise the consumer will never get a better service today than what they might have had 20 years ago. Specifically to virtual enforcement, although
we have had a new set of regulations back in 2014, and they brought huge improvements to the whole sector, there are still many primitive behaviours that are not supportive, not just of the debtor, but also for the creditors, because we must all remember that, forever and a day, when enforcement agents are allowed to add fees on top of a principle debt, it will always be more difficult for the debtor to repay. And even those that do repay, if they are repaying at, say, £100 a month, if £50 of that is going to the enforcement agent, then it will just take a lot longer to get their money. So in designing a solution which charges
the debtor less – which is fantastic for the community – you are also getting the principle amount back to the creditor sooner. And if you can do that by using technology – so reducing your cost to produce the
service, so it does not impact upon your profitability, then that is a good thing which benefits everyone. So my inspiration began with what
impact can we have on this space, followed by COVID-19, then I looked at the impact of COVOD-19 on creditors, are they really going to suffer? And ultimately, I sat down
CCR:Will we see all enforcement going this way? JW: It certainly will be the norm in the future. If you were to hang up on this call now and call one of the more traditional suppliers, they would do one of two things: if they were sensible, they would stay quiet on the subject just in case virtual enforcement is such a hit that they have to do it, or else they would come out fighting and insist that they would not do it. But the reality is that virtual enforcement
So, right back in the first week of April, we engaged with the Royal Courts of Justice to say ‘these are our ideas, what do you think?’ It has taken this time to fully develop the service, and we are really excited by it
with a wide group of my team to ask if we could do what the court are doing? During the pandemic, the court closed all the buildings, but then slowly opened them up by providing hearings online. Now, if we can hold a judicial hearing online, why can we not hold an enforcement visit online? So, right back in the first week of April, we
engaged with the Royal Courts of Justice to say ‘these are our ideas, what do you think?’ It has taken this time to fully develop the service, and we are really excited by it.
is a fantastic solution. It takes feet off the street, which is expensive and, in many cases, the resource is not there anyway. And it puts more control into an environment where it can be overseen by senior members of staff – it is very difficult to oversee the impact enforcement has, of course you have video technology, which helps, but getting this into an environment where it can be more consistent in its delivery, more cost-effective for the debtor, and gets the principle amount back more quickly to the creditor, is just the right thing to do and, ultimately, anything that is the right thing to do will be widely adopted over time.
CCR:What has the feedback from the courts been? JW: We started to look into this when the industry came to a stop because of COVID- 19, and we came up with the concept of virtual enforcement within a couple of weeks, and our first engagement with the Royal Courts of Justice, who are ultimately responsible for High Court Enforcement Officers was as early as the second week of April. So we presented a solution to them and
said ‘these are our ideas, we have taken barrister’s legal opinion on them and we believe that they are achievable within the bounds of the regulations for the following reasons, what is your feedback?’ Within seven days we got positive feedback from them that they could not see any reason why we could not take a visit from the street and put
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www.CCRMagazine.com August 2019
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