Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
With stricter banking regulations since 2008, Brexit uncertainty and sparse data available on small-medium enterprises (SMEs, mainstream lending sources are not sufficiently servicing the credit appetite of UK businesses. The size of this ‘SME funding gap’ is estimated to increase to £22 billion by 2017. This is a major factor in the growth of the…
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…and what you can do about it Late payment remains a giant source of frustration for many businesses, with new figures from Bacs Payment Schemes suggesting £14.2 billion is currently owed to SMEs in outstanding invoices. While many are focused on the impact this has on cash flow and identifying ways to recover these unpaid…
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…and what the collections sector needs to do As we know, the link between debt and mental health is significant. The recently published vulnerability guide for debt collection cited that one in two consumers with a debt problem also has a mental health problem. As members of the credit industry, we are already engaging with this agenda…
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Provident Financial is one of the best-known consumer credit firms not just in the industry, but also across the industry’s customer base. It began life with a model that many other firms went on to imitate and which had the agent-customer relationship at its heart. It has served thousands of low-income customers over many years…
Read moreIf there’s one lesson that the ongoing PPI scandal has hammered home to our colleagues in the banking industry, it’s that product-focused selling doesn’t work. Engineering the sale of something that the customer doesn’t need, and ultimately doesn’t want, is a sure-fire way of damaging both the relationship and the organisation’s reputation. Customer-centricity is proven…
Read moreThe important thing about being a true credit professional lies in the results that you achieve. Some people feel like an impostor, just because they didn’t start out to work in credit. The reality is that no one sets out to work in credit, they fall into it. Some hate every moment and run a…
Read moreAt Dukes we’ve been quick to adopt online payments and new tech like Google Wallet to make sure anyone who is willing to pay their debts is able to do so. Why? Because ‘new’ payment methods are no longer just a tool for early adopters – they’re becoming an essential. Last week I read that the 2017…
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Any type of data breach, whether due to an external hacking incident or an internal staff error, is a significant issue that needs immediate attention. A key aspect of the legal requirements surrounding a data breach is to demonstrate that your business or organisation takes the issue very seriously and is proactively seeking to not…
Read morePeer-to-peer lending is rapidly penetrating the SME market, and its drivers are discernible as a cluster of related and traceable factors that are making the new lending channel particularly attractive right now. My recent peer-to-peer SME lending study focused on elements of the UK SME economy that peer-to-peer lenders are reaching, the demographics of those…
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The FCA’s thematic review on early arrears management in unsecured lending has painted a varied picture across the industry in relation to the treatment of individuals in arrears. Indeed, various organisations are now calling for a “breathing space” which would see customers given a grace period from which to start to put their finances back…
Read moreArtificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming industries across the board, at a truly rapid rate. AI is, without a doubt, one of the biggest emerging trends set to permanently change the way we do business over the coming year. Organisations are actively searching for AI solutions that offer unique opportunities to drastically improve the customer services…
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While late or non-payment is well known to be adversely impacting businesses in many ways at present, one particularly disturbing trend lies in the proportion of companies having to write off turnover as uncollectable. Much of the focus and statistics surrounding late payment within the media and government assumes that the customer does eventually pay.…
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We all know that Credit Control is a communications business and anyone who as been on one of our courses or completed our Education program knows the importance I put on carefully selecting the words we use and the questions we ask in order to get the results that we want. Words paint pictures in the minds of the…
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