Debt Collection

Lending money has always been laiden with risk because of bankruptcies and defaults on payments. But now more than ever before there are troubles ahead. According to the TUC the amounts owed by British households was a whopping £1,688bn in 2020, and this is likely to rise.

Given the size of the debt, even a small improvement can make a big impact to lenders. This is where AI can be leveraged to improve overall debt collection performance, allowing creditors and customers to benefit.

Much of the debt collection effort is manual (e.g. follow-up calls, emails and other forms of individual level correspondence). Organisations can now use AI to automate communications such as sending reminders, overdue and late fee messages via email, SMS and WhatsApp. AI can also determine the best time and medium for any communications to be sent, so that response and collection rates are improved, and also when a bill has been settled so that further action is stopped. It is also possible to use (for example) age, salary, profession and historical interactions of a customer to determine the probability of a client making a payment. This information can then be used to alter the approach to ensure the best channel with the highest possibility of obtaining a positive response is used - and at the same time reduces costs.

AI can also perform analyses to predict who is likely to default, will forewarn, and then either formulate pre-emptive strategies for recovery or suggest not to offer the loan at all.