Credit Management January February 2020

OPINION
AUTHOR – Nick Cherry FCICM
all too common require technology and
processes to be specifically adapted to
suspend activity immediately in affected
areas.
The last ten years has witnessed a sea
change in consumers’ expectations of
how they expect financial institutions,
and their service providers, to hold
and use data on them and for this to
be reflected in the service provided.
Ignorance or inadequate systems are no
longer an excuse and harnessing data
more prudently and ultimately more
effectively continues to be a significant
challenge and opportunity.
SPECIALISED TREATMENT
In most countries across the globe, the
demographics are shifting and the baby
boom generation, with their modern
attitudes to the use of credit, are ageing
and sadly dying in increasing numbers.
This has encouraged creditors of all
shapes and sizes to wake up the need
for specialised treatments for deceased
accounts, and to realise the opportunity
that this represents to build advocacy for
their brands amongst a decedent’s family
and friends, by providing as good an
experience in death as they endeavoured
to provide in life.
This has led to a greater demand for
highly-specialised services in this most
delicate of processes, but in very recent
years it has also led to a change in the
mindset at clients around what type of
facilities would benefit from specialised
deceased account management. Looking
to the future, I expect this to continue to
manifest in the coming years.
As the focus on the customer experience
and regulatory lens on appropriate
handling of consumers increases,
there has been a surge in the desire to
extend ‘traditional’ unsecured account
methodologies to new areas. Clients
are realising in increasing numbers that
they need to provide an equally positive
solution for mortgages, automotive
accounts and even credit balances or
deposit and investment accounts where
consumers, or more accurately, their
estates and subsequent beneficiaries are
actually owed money.
Developing new, compliant,
customer -level workstreams and products
is both challenging and exciting but is
just the next iteration of the incredible
pace of change in what many still
erroneously consider to be a static and
often overlooked aspect of the collections
industry.
Nick Cherry FCICM is Chief Operating
Officer, Phillips & Cohen Associates.
Advancing the credit profession / www.cicm.com / January/February 2020 / PAGE 23