In Focus Consumer Credit
Making the right decisions to help vulnerable customers
Last month, CCRMagazine and Cabot Credit Management brought together a group of senior professionals to discuss issues around vulnerability, they were: Sue Chapple, director of strategic relationships, Chartered Institute of Credit Management (SC); Martin Parr; Sarah Watts, director, Quilam Capital; Alex Woodcraft, head of collections and insight, GAIN Credit; Mike O'Reilly, senior manager consumer collections and recoveries, BT; Katherine Bailey, group credit, risk & compliance, Valor Hospitality Europe (KB); Simon Bayley, commercial director, Moneybarn (SB); Damani Johnson, head of compliance, Glenhawk; Michael Nicholls, relationship director, the London Institute of Banking & Finance (MN); Stuart Sykes, chief operating officer, Oblix Capital (SS); Harry Hughes, senior insights manager, Lending Standards Board; Jess Roberts, insight and support manager, Lending Standards Board; Rupert Corder, senior category manager, operations and recoveries, Capital One; Russell Hamblin-Boone, chief executive officer, CIVEA; Phil McGilvray, chief operating officer, Cabot Credit Management (PM); Scott Carter, collections manager, Starling Bank; Russ Barrett, head of strategy and collections, Ezbob (RB); and Dawn Stobart, director of debt management, Christians Against Poverty
finance: someone comes along and says ‘you can write it all off’ and they do it.
SC: The social-media point if very interesting because I do agree that we are at risk of diluting the real meaning of vulnerability. Now, amongst some of the social media
active population, they appear to feel that they have to have some kind of vulnerability or mental-health issue as a matter of status, and if they are not saying that, then that is almost becoming the worry. There seems to be a feeling that ‘if I am
not sharing my problems, if I am actually alright, then I am somehow less than’. So the people who really do have genuine problems might get lost in the fog.
PM: Identification of vulnerability is simply another way to understand customers
Now, amongst some of the social media active population, they appear to feel that they have to have some kind of vulnerability or mental-health issue as a matter of status, and if they are not saying that, then that is almost becoming the worry
better and work with them towards the best outcome for them and their situation.
KB: You can get onto the telephone and say ‘you owe this money, and that is the end of it, I do not care if you are vulnerable or not’, but, actually, by having a little bit if
kindness and by truly listening, then there will be little bits of conversations that you will pick up which will mean that you can see that there is something going on with a particular customer. It is a question of having the right probing
questions and not necessarily using your bog- standard script, but using common sense.
RB: It can be a matter of having the right attitude in the business and right models. It is incumbent on companies like our own to train the staff to identify and then move things forward. The pigeon-hole question was raised and
you cannot pigeon-hole until you have had that proper conversation, or else everything falls down. I find that the DCAs can be ahead of the
pack in this regards because they have had to be: they have been audited more than most via the FCA and hit hard
>>
Left-right: Mike O’Reilly; Phil McGilvray; Rupert Corder; Russ Barrett January 2020
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