Everyone deserves a little breathing space
In 2014, I starting working with debt charities lenders and collection agencies to look at how to make the experience of capturing a consumer’s true affordability position. In the UK, legislation helps the consumer in that they can apply for Breathing space or agreed period to allow you to stop calls and demands and get organized. Legislation also says a lender, collector or debt advice must have a reasonable understanding of a person’s affordability, use a standard format to capture this before setting a payment plan.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world is yet to catch up with the UK and consumer’s are less protected and businesses will use a variety of ways to ascertain a person’s affordability rather then the single version of the truth.
In 2016, in collaboration with a tech partner and I designed and launched the solution which was utilized by two main banks and a Telco to assess affordability for consumer’s struggling to pay. It was the first tool in the market that used both the standard financial statement and what I coined created a technology window between the agent and the consumer in that they could share the journey together.
For a lender, agency or advice business this tool reduced the time to complete assessment by 50% and focused the very valuable time of the agent on an outcome and not the data gathering. It also improved the accuracy of the assessment as it was based on data the consumer could evidence from bills or bank statements and not just asked at the time of a call, “how much do you pay for gas?” Ultimately, this lead to more sustainable repayment plans which led to less consumer’s being chased for failed instalments the next month.
However, this was the start of the journey and my vision was to have a better solution that not only helped businesses but made the customer journey as positive an experience as possible. This led to where I am today and Breathe….
mybreathingspace 