Technology Record - Issue 22: Autumn 2021

T he economic impact of Covid-19 has been immense. Many people are struggling to repay loans, so governments and banks have implemented loan restructuring programmes, furlough schemes and payment holidays. However, pandemic-related economic support will not continue permanently, so what will hap- pen when it ends? To fight back against the potential rise in the number of non-performing loans, banks and credit management organisations will need to improve their collections processes by imple- menting a digital-first strategy. There are various ways digital collections solutions can help these organisations to handle the increased collections volume and workload in 2021 and beyond. One way is by reducing the cost of collections. Financial institutions and collection agencies have unique debt recovery and write-off concerns and regulations, so they need an industry-specific solution. VeriPark has built VeriLoan, a powerful end-to-end digital loan origination, servicing and collection solution, specifically for the lending industry. VeriLoan’s collection module automates the entire collection process, enhancing cash flow and lowering expenses. Digital collections solutions enable financial institutions to manage end-to-end collection pro- cesses in a single automated platform. Customers expect to be able to restructure loans or make payments via any physical or digital channel. The service requests captured from any channel become easily available in customer relationship management (CRM) systems and can be imme- diately assigned to specific agents thanks to a single framework running on the back end. With straight-through processing, the collection pro- cess can be automated from start to finish with- out any manual intervention, minimising agent involvement, handling time, errors and transac- tion processing times. As a result of integration with the core banking system, external systems, Dynamics 365 CRM and other third-party applications, all contact centre agents, branch employees, direct sales agents and other customer-facing team members can access a 360-degree single customer view from a central and unified interface. This makes data accessible to those who need it through their browsers, Microsoft Outlook or tablet apps. Digitising the collections process also allows financial institutions to easily build complex debt collection flows. A basic collections journey might start with the bank or the credit manage- ment company scheduling a proactive reminder to be sent to a segment of customers whose due Why digitise loan collections? Financial institutions are facing a rise in non-performing loans caused by the pandemic, but digital collections solutions such as VeriLoan from VeriPark can help to expedite repayments S E L I M HA S AN : V E R I PAR K UK AND CANADA V I EWPO I NT 134