Digital Debt Resolution: Changing our mindset – [FULL INTERVIEW]

0:02
So hi, everyone, welcome. And I’m here with Arren Khan, who’s the Managing Director of the digital debt resolution agency, and Dan Calcott, as well, who’s the director of the digital debt resolution agency. So guys, thanks very much. Welcome. And thanks for joining me today. Thanks. Thanks

0:17
for having me. So,

0:20
really interested to find out your perspective. I mean, digital has been a big trend recently, and just find out a little bit about obviously, like, what’s happened in the digital collection space? And why you kind of think it’s important now really?

0:34
Yeah, so I think the whole digital theme has been a hot topic for quite a while now, as you said, quite a few years, the pandemic only accelerate that, and we’re definitely seeing a shift in consumer trends to interact online. And we kind of feel that managing your debt and discussing debt and, and resolving accounts should should be should be dealt with exactly the same way. So it’s more of the preferences of consumers are changing. So the way the way that we engage with those consumers and interact with us consumers, workers, it’s got to fit as well. And it also, when it comes to a sensitive subject, like debt, what you can and what you what you find is the digital channels and the digital aspect to it kind of helped open that door to the conversation, making it easier for people to engage. And that’s that’s what we’re finding anyway.

1:38
So if you’ve been finding that in terms of like, engagement levels have been higher, when you’ve done it digitally than maybe what you’ve seen before, when you’ve been doing it through, I don’t know telephony or face to face kind of based in

1:50
with with engagement rates. Obviously, we’ve we’ve done a lot, a lot of different work to help with that around the branding and the language we use as well. But in terms of digital contact channels helping engagement, yes, definitely. Because you’d find the conversation that over the telephone could be deemed quite embarrassing to discuss about the financially vulnerable, for example, or struggling with with specific bills, people tend to find those conversations difficult and embarrassing. And via your digital channels, your web chat, your whatsapp, your texting, it’s slightly easier. It eliminates that the human face to it that would usually make it embarrassing. We’re able to do it in a way that we’re still able to effectively manage that, that that count and, and help that customer.

2:48
Yeah, I think adding to that as well, yeah, but there is a negative stigma associated with our industry, rightly or wrongly, that details that resolution. And we’re trying to change that ethos by putting the customer first, you know what she are like in every other industry, because most people aren’t in debt, because it used to be 99% of people on especially because of this pandemic. Most people, some people are in debt that have never been in debt before. And, you know, typically were introduced as the bad guys to get escalated to a debt collection agency. So you know, by having digital channels, it kind of breaks down that barrier. So people feel a lot more comfortable speaking with us, or dealing with a channel that’s, you know, fully auditable, for example, if this is WhatsApp, also, on their own terms, it gives them the control that they probably lost from before when they were just I guess spiralling into the you know, the some of the years and then eventually, most cases default, again, and giveaway have given them a bit of control, but because it last.

3:49
So I mean, I know a lot of a lot of players have been sort of investing digital for a long time and been watched. But what’s your sort of state of view on the state of evolution of the industry? I mean, certainly from a customer care point of view, there’s been investment in digital mean, to an extent has been investment in in collections. I mean, do you think, do you think we’ve really made enough of it? I mean, obviously, you guys are coming with a digital proposition. I mean, where do you think the gaps have been?

4:14
It’s hard. Obviously, I’ve worked in that collection for about 12 years, and you come across various different firms. So it’s hard really to comment on what they aren’t doing. You have an idea, but I think, but always we try to focus most on the client. You know, we’ve debt in every industry, which every industry is forgotten word, it’s, it’s unresolved. It’s often you know, a tiny part of the business that often gets forgotten about until it becomes a problem. For us as a company, we tried to know what we think the industry just because of what we’ve experienced is that we need to give the you know, our partnership and our clients make it easy for them to manage the relationship. Kind of why we’re here did a client poll it makes the relationship really simple and easy to manage? versus maybe someone else who doesn’t kind of have that platform? So I think we’re just given the client results is the biggest thing, I think.

5:11
Yeah. And is that is that kind of what you think that some of the DCS or the DCA industry is kind of missing? I mean, what what are they? What do you think they’re kind of missing the you think you think that we can sort of add an add on?

5:22
Yeah, so. So for me there is it’s if we’re looking at the customer journey from onboarding with our client, for example. So let’s say it’s a loan or credit card, what we’ll find out here later, whatever that initial product teams, so what what you see in a lot more digital journeys there. And they’re very effective, and it worked very well. So from a customer point of view, I’m signing up online, I love the journey. I love the where it’s gone, or utilise the product. But then I fall back on fall behind on the payments. And the options available to clients in the sending those customers then to DCs that will call them three times a day and send a letter. But this person has never had a phone call in relation to this to this particular company ever before at any stage in the lifecycle. So that’s out of place for that particular customer journey, by aligning our approach and strategies and the digital element will find itself for fitting alongside and very nicely with that particular client type. Because that’s how their consumers and that their customers have shown that’s how they want to transact. So any other way is almost out of the norm for that that particular customer. So I know if it’s me, I don’t I very rarely speak to companies on the phone. So I know that if it were me, that’s how I’d want to transact. It’s about making sure that those options are available to our our clients,

7:02
sort of things like like, buy now pay later, some of the, you know, the app base, the app based products that we see every day, and it’s trying to trying to keep it in the same channel. Yeah, I suppose I suppose one of the questions I have is one of the questions, I’m sure you’re asked is around vulnerability. I mean, like, how do you deal with vulnerability? And that’s what has always been reliance in the industry to say, Well, look, at the end of the day, we’re going to have you talking with someone, right? So because because as a human being that’s that sort of interaction that consorted attack vulnerability, then what’s your kind of view on that in terms of like, how you handle some of those difficult conversations?

7:34
Yeah, so I think, obviously, we’ve touched on our digital channels make make it a little bit easier for vulnerable people in potential vulnerable situations to come forward and open data compensation. So obviously, there’s, there’s that aspect to it. Alongside that, obviously, the branding and language we use will put a lot of thought and effort to make the digital DRM, very warm and welcoming, and friendly as possible. Which,

8:07
literally how you want to be treated, which is

8:10
again, so that then helps encourage that conversation. And then when we actually get into that conversation, I think it’s important to remember that because there’s I see a debate about a lot about digital does that mean you lose the WHO human touch and not at all, just because it’s on a digital channel, it doesn’t mean that we’ve lost that human touch because it is still, like, for example, we don’t use chat bots. So if a customer starts a webshop, to want one of our team straightaway, so we’re able to pick up that conversation and make sure that the the questions that do have are getting answered as quickly as possible. And that not goes for any any any digital channel, whether it could be an email, we want, we want to get a response back to that customer as soon as possible. We don’t want them to have to wait 24 hours, 48 minutes, sometimes up to a week for a reply on email. It’s for us, it’s about just treating people how are we would want to be treated and how we believe they can expect to be treated as well.

9:22
And I suppose part of that is treating people the way they want to be treated in the way they expect it from a product quantity, right. So if I’ve signed up for if I bought everything online, and it’s all been remote than you know that obviously treating people in that same way and having quick responses and those kinds of things. Yeah.

9:38
How we how we’re approaching it, and we’re almost I think Aaron touched on it in terms of the partnership. We don’t we’re almost see yourself as an extension of our client and the way that they would treat their customers and we want to mirror that throughout that journey. It’s not it’s not about passengers over Send your accounts over to the big bad debt collector anymore, it’s about, we potentially are better place to help this particular customer in comparison to you. So let’s get

10:14
started. So obviously, my life started on the phone 1012 years ago, a long time ago. And you know, the best conversations you have with people, wherever they come over the phone or by email, we’re having open and honest conversations, people sometimes will be frustrated about being wavered, that they’ll ultimately you managed to agree upon which they can afford, and they adhere to, or you can do the opposite, where you force them into a corner, and they might sit over something they can’t afford, that’s not doing right by you, or by the customer or by the client, because ultimately, they might make the first payment if you look at before and never pay you again. So our ideology is that we approach the customer and we have a you know, an open honest conversation with them, and try and get much upon the can afford and they can stick with. But I think that’s why our poll, for example, isn’t just the whole debt collection versus debt resolution. We’re not focusing just on money. If we come to you, let’s say, because the idea is, let’s say for example, I don’t know the financial services industry is going through a standard internal process. And I guess pastor deck looks at it and say, you’re lucky if you get 10 11% Liquid liquidation on it. So 11 accounts are going to recover out of every 100. But the problem is, what about every nine? So if we then come at them with all you haven’t paid, you haven’t paid, but what if there is a dispute? Let’s resolve it together, let’s work together, Don’t bury your head in the sand itself, getting all that kind of language, right, so they can speak with you. And then they realise you are kind of mitigating and opening the door. And if you are struggling, fine. Talk to us. Let’s have a conversation about and help you, you know, resolve this because it is a it’s a burden it just turn your mind down. I’ve been on that before when I was younger. And also union is something that does, you know, bother you. But if you can open up an open and honest conversation with a company it does help.

11:58
Yeah, yeah. Sure. Do you think that’s gonna get more prevalent? I suppose we’re just looking at the the economics I mean, so you know, we’re just about to go into the new new new energy tariff as well. I’m sort of very conscious of that today. And so like, you know, so obviously, taking metre readings. But, but, you know, I mean, like, what do you think’s going to happen, sort of going forward with that? And what’s the role? You think the digital has got to play with that? And then because because it could impact us from an arrest volume point of view?

12:21
Yeah, I think what’s interesting is, honestly, we’ve been going since October, and some of the accounts that we were setting up plans in November, December, January, they’ve been contacting us, which is great, because they feel comfortable doing that and saying that I can’t, I can’t commit to this band anymore. Because it’s one affordable mark, you know, my manager bills have quadrupled, quite a high, I’d say 5%. We’re about to renegotiate, which is great. We want them to talk to us. We’re not here to ask you something, you can’t afford them all. But what was interesting was that a few people said, oh, you know, how do I approach my other classmates is like, slightly solar’s is different, which is kind of nice. And hopefully make great mark in one day, we can’t put that kind of stuff online, unfortunately. But it was nice. But yeah, you know, digital debt resolution was kind of set up on the idea of there was going to be a lot of problems of the bucket, Brexit and the pandemic, nevermind what’s happened with the energy crisis and inflation, we think getting the language write is really important. Because I use my sister’s example, I’ve asked her if I could, by the way, she had bills for energy, you’ve got to think of 70 pounds of 348. She’s a single mother of two, she can’t afford it. Now. So what do I do? There’s all this panic, you can only pay what you can afford, ultimately, to speak to them, and pay what you can. And it’s about keeping that door open. And that’s what worries me at the moment is that if the language isn’t right, and you’ve got a choice to do with paying your credit card, or paying your gas electric, you’re gonna pay your gas electric idea. And this is going to take a hit, but if you can approach them, so this will be no time to change and let speak to us. And we’ve already implemented a new strategy, being proactive with that and saying, We know, things are difficult speak towards, you know, make us an offer, or can we refer you to we work with peer plan to help you, you know, work out something you can afford on, or we have a budget planner, which works out something you can afford as well, we’ve already committed to a plan. And that way, it’s kind of doing a bit more than just shaking the tree bit further than what we should.

14:20
And so and what new techniques do you think we’re going to have to look at in terms of resolution? Because I mean, certainly, the economic shock could be much bigger than we’ve seen for it could be bigger than we’ve seen for many 20 years, maybe even bigger than 2008. To a certain extent there is it’s been talked about and sometimes it sort of chicken nets, with with these things, expecting everything to go to fall down. But mean, do you think there’s new tools and techniques we need to look at over and above? You know, the standard plans or standard forbearance or those kinds of things? Do you think there’s other ways we need to think about it?

14:51
I think for me, a lot of it ultimately depends on the relationship an outsource partner has with their client It’s because if you’ve got to be proactive with this, it’s come in, and it is going to financially impact a lot of people. And it’s going to financially impact a lot of people that are probably never been in this position before. So if it’s someone that’s never been in debt before and never never been to a debt collection agency before, if you just funnel all those people down the exact same strategy that you’ve always been doing, that it can’t end well for that particular customer, because it’s like that. It’s from there in that position from from means that are outside of their control. So again, prior to reclaim, you can almost it’s you can do work on your strategy, you can you can start pre empting some of these conversations, you can give customers the opportunity to talk and cannot tell the exact current circumstances, reduced payment plans, what whatever it might be, it’s, your client is willing to have that open dialogue with the outside partner first, then there’s definitely ways and solutions that can be implemented to help people not.

16:16
Now one of the things that does that deck I’ve chatted with people about it’s almost like that, honestly, in conversations in terms of like, what is the situation what it really is the budget, rather than it being sort of like, you need to go here. It’s around having that, that listening and the conversation and having a bit of honesty around? Where do people actually sit with their, with their current budgets and their current situation, to then be able to walk out such a solution, which I think sounds like that fits quite well with some of your ideas around resolution rather than collections?

16:47
Because, yes, you can focus on payment all you want. But like I said, if they can’t afford to pay the amount you’re asking for, or the amount you think they should be paying this, the there’s nothing you can do in that scenario to force them to pay that. So it’s about being a little bit more proactive and listening and finding out. All right. What how do we actually help resolve this account? Yeah.

17:13
Yeah. Because I think on top of that, as well, that’s going back to what Dan said to people that I’ve never been in debt. Nobody understands that collection. It’s crazy, even now. So first of all, everyone make kinds make a joke that we look like Bayless because quite big loads, which is quite funny. Obviously, we’re not as much. Yeah. And then on top of that, you know, if I tell someone what I do, and it’s literally I was I was at, I was playing Paddle Tennis last day, and also explained to someone who’s got a business what we do exactly. And he’s, you know, I thought, I always explain it, like, you go to this panel here, this bank, I won’t name who they are, they’re clearly the case internal, and they pass it to that person. So someone like us, obviously, we’re branded a bit different. And we’ll send out you know, an automated strategy to try to get them to engage and speak with us and come to a resolution. So you, I think I’ve explained it logically. And then they’ll always say, I still pay you, if you knocked on my door, I’ve just literally told you, I’m not there. And it’s just confusion. And I think that’s where we’ve got what we’re trying to change for us personally, not saying it’s probably I always hear it was worse before, but there is still a stigma associated with our industry. So if we can make sure that AWS as a brand are well aligned with the clients and being, you know, friendly and approachable. That way, these people that have never been in debt before I do feel like they can speak to us, and it does work quite well, because the last thing we want in you know, things are gonna get worse, even the energy bills are gonna increase again, and that’s on October, but it’ll still creep up. And, you know, the last thing is these people burying their head in the sand, where they’re not speaking with us, as often with these things, we only have one time to speak to them, if they don’t resolve it, and we’ve had bad experiences, and they’re never gonna talk to us again, really, it makes the situation worse for them. For us, for our clients. It’s about getting it right at that stage.

19:02
I mean, one of the trends I’ve seen suddenly, in the creditors and the banks, etc, has been this almost like the collections, the collections piece seems to be getting close to almost like the customer, the customer care, these are the customer of the the resolution piece, and it’s seems like what you’re sort of talking about, and what you’re trying to do is trying to do the same but more from a DCA space. I mean, do you think do you think that’s Do you think that’s sort of like, reflective of just generally like we’re all going into this one customer journey, and it’s about holistic customer treatment, rather than, you know, in life and then collections or or do you think we’re always going to be separate,

19:37
almost carrying on the brand values and because they are still, even though the map missed a couple of areas, they are still our clients customer at the end of the day. So it’s almost I was speaking Tyron about this the other week, because that’s where because, obviously within the debt collection agency, it’s heavily focused around cash collected and liquid assets, how can we improve liquidation rates. But we are starting to see more of the customer care and the customer relationship, almost coming on par with, it’s just as important as the cash collected and the liquidation team. And how we’re gonna get to a point where the customer the Customer Care, and is, is more important than the actual cash collected figure, which I think we’ll start to get to that point, especially now, do you

20:33
think there’s a behavioural change going on sort of almost like a generational change, in terms of like, how we interact with customers is almost like that, being an advocate of the customer, which is what I think is what you’re saying there sort of really sort of helps, like, get better engagement, and obviously helps from a business point of view, but it helps them helps them as well. Do you think? Do you think we’re changing our relationships with companies?

20:54
Yeah, I mean, I’m 3326. We never I never answer the phone. And I’ll never answer the question anyway. It’s not something I do. And I do anything on WhatsApp, or webshop. Because it’s on my own terms. If I’m at work, I’m busy. I’ll do it that way. But I think, yeah, it’s convenience, more than anything else. And also for me is I’ve got it in an audible thing I can use pretend to be webshop. For sky, they always email your transcript. So it’s all fully logged. Whereas if I’m bringing someone I have to go to a lot of effort to get that call recording, should I want the Digital Journal just make it a lot easier for a number of reasons. Rarely will you know, it’s all in black and white then. And I find with if you’re in a dispute, let’s say if you’re on the phone with someone, or whatever reason, they’re less likely to get into much of a conversation about it on WebSockets. It’s kind of mature, which makes it quicker than probably with your phone. But yeah, I’d say definitely I agree with that. I suppose

21:56
that helps with things like evidencing and controls and all of those kinds of things. I mean that because everything’s recorded, right.

22:02
Yeah. I mean, that’s one of the reasons we’re digital on the anyway. Because one of the biggest factors of complaints is Agent attitude on the phone. And if you don’t have a phone, then it makes it a lot easier. But yeah, it works well for us. If you’ve got anything to add on, you’re like you’re ready to say something.

22:24
No, no, no, I think you pretty much covered it.

22:31
Sure. That the one thing I was going to talk about was asynchronous. Right? So that’s one of the things that comes up, which is like, do you have it when he sort of likes you talked about WhatsApp? It’s like, so you might send a text and then and then it might be like, you know, 30 minutes later, you might then come back with something right? I mean, that’s, that seems like that’s a big advantage on a cultural change as well, rather than I’m going to talk with someone and I expect an instant response. Right? So it’s,

22:58
that’s a, that’s a huge benefit from a customer point of view, because it goes back to, if they call me when I’m at work. And I can’t answer this call. I can’t answer that call. But I could still, if so through WhatsApp, if I send a WhatsApp message, I go back to work. And I carry on, then, and I come back. And I’ve had a record response. And I can do it that way. And so I’m managing and helping to resolve my account on my own terms, and it’s convenient for me. Whereas your traditional, we’ll call them three times, and hopefully it’ll pick up once when they pick up or keep them up for 20 minutes. It didn’t work for a lot of people they’ve got absolutely, if they’ve got they’ve got kids to pick up from nursery, they’ve got work, they’ve got pets, it’s you need to be able to give customers that convenience, convenience is King

23:59
do you think you’re getting is also a reflection of like, just we all seem like much more strapped strapped for time these days? Right? It’s kind of like, that’s almost like the new currency in some ways. And it’s like, anything you can do to like, we’re all multitasking and do multiple things at the same time. And, and, you know, customers are as well, right?

24:14
When we’re designing these strategies, it’s very important to not forget to put yourself in their shoes. How would I react to that? Would I like that? Would I like my mom receiving that? How it’s, it’s funny when you say it like that, but it’s true. It’s, it’s, I don’t ever want to send a campaign out that I wouldn’t be comfortable receiving or any member of a family receiving themselves. It’s it’s that it’s that element. That’s where the human touch comes into it. Even though it’s digital. We haven’t lost the human touch. And convenience is a huge part of that we consider it sympathise with with people’s current circumstances and their their that Right, we don’t know what they’re doing on a day to day, we don’t know how busy, they might be absolutely swamped. So give them the tools to be able to engage with us without interfering with everything else they’ve got to do. And you

25:11
find some channels work better than others. I mean, do you look, I don’t know what channels you look at. But do you find, you know, like, there’s you got web chat, you might have WhatsApp might have a two way SMS, you might have those those kinds of things? Versus Do you think you find some, some are preferred than others? Or is there any kind of themes to kind of look at?

25:26
So every every channel you’ve mentioned, now we do use in terms of popularity, it differs. Because what we tend to see is year two way SMS in year and your walk ups are more of I’ll send a message now, wait for a response. And I’ll reply in a couple of hours. Your web chat is I won’t speak someone now and resolve it now. So it really depends on on the well, there’s quite a few factors. But one thing that we were quite surprised about is how popular WhatsApp so it is. So WhatsApp is more popular than than web chat

26:06
for. And as much as you put that up against, I suppose just, you know, almost like self serve portal, I suppose is the is the other one as well isn’t that because a lot of people imagine just us that they just want to do it, they can do it in their own time whenever they want to.

26:18
And the vast majority of people do do that. Because our polling just payments, you can do a lot more in there. And we’ve designed those those journeys to make it as easy as possible for customers to do that without ever having to speak to us. And the vast majority of customers do do that. It’s almost like the digital contact channels that are complementary to that process.

26:47
Yeah, I think you know, what I’ve not come across before which but we did. whelmed you know, the brand is really key. I Carcassonne, Paul has its own marketing site. And usually that’s just mostly injury to sales, like it’s just a homepage as a full market insight designed to give the customer so he’s yours, I guess and also just make him relax, you’re giving me support giving you control. And the idea is that they can do anything they would want over the phone or by any of them channel on the on the portal. And it’s also fully mapped out. So it’s all about gaining trust. So if you guys were, you know, go onto a credit hold, and you’ll get an email saying Did you see what we’re getting into here. And that way, it’s fully audited as well. Because we know that we’re actually we’re taking whatever they’ve raised or queried that version, whatever, we’re taking it seriously and we are dealing with it versus I think a lot of the market is just payment oriented. And that, you know that way they would want to bring in a query or dispute. So we tried to cover every we have covered every angle that you could possibly want

27:50
to have. You talked about a very sort of human centric approach from collections point of view, although, you know, obviously, you’re very digitally based. I mean, there’s been a lot talked about data. And in fact, you can use data to sort of preempt some of this stuff and those kind of things. I’m quite interested to hear your views around. How do you sort of match the use of data and getting more data and using the data to drive the process, particularly automated process versus almost like a digital process? Or be a human process as well? I mean, what’s what’s what’s your kind of view on where those to sort of interact?

28:21
I mean, everything you do on our system is logged, everything was with us. We look at where our why, why is the bounce rate on login. And we have recordings as well. So we looked at what, why did the customer drop off his fears? Why have they gone off here, everything’s kind of tracked. And we’re always we have like a continuous improvement programme to try better it and even to some will approach because now we know she dropped her fears. And if we can help and improve on and kind of sizes example the payment plan is always the biggest one that people drop off because it’s it can be a pain. But we implemented open banking, which helps with that it makes it from a free five minute IE for an hour to 1015 second pulling the transactional data and working out disposable income. But on the back of that as well. We have obviously we use the SFS statement for the irony. And then they also have the slugs built in the back of it. So if a customer says is that is Darla, single father. He has his own purse, but he’s spending too much overall on his rent and his food and all that kind of stuff. Village flag upon our system, the American approach was okay, you know, as part of this, you ask for any more than what the industry recommends. And we challenge in a polite way or similar if it was too little. So when you use the data quite a lot to kind of keep improving the system. And we have a lot of their minds around it as well.

29:42
So you mentioned open banking, I’ll just get your take on open banking. So there’s a lot of ink has been has been written about open banking. A lot of ink was written around it sort of like solving irony as an example particularly automating ironies. I mean was was was I mean obviously I’ve noted we’ve got payments coming through as well as we can always already do pay payments, but bearable recurring payments coming through him and what’s what’s your kind of view on the state of the industry and the usefulness of open banking, particularly for collections.

30:08
So it’s something I was quite keen on, I’m gonna say, well, digital ders, we have to use the best technology around and, you know, how do you improve the customer journey open bank is huge. And we’ve got a great partner, and we’re doing a case study with them in September to prove you know, how it’s performing initial false on is higher than expected. Because we’re quite lucky. Two years ago, there wasn’t much media around open banking has been a lot of investment into various different firms, there’s a lot of good publicity going around. Because people, if you don’t understand open banking, you probably think, Oh, God, this is a bit intrusive. I’ve just clicked here on the digital era, and now it’s redirected to my app. And if you don’t understand that, you think, Oh, they’re gonna they’re gonna have access to my account, but we have a pop up saying exactly what we do, you don’t have access to that, just make sure you’ve got the money in the bank to pay it. And then same on the eye on each side, for me, is the biggest drop off. So it’s like, well, how can we make it better? So we’ve simplified it. So it’s clear boxes, it’s concise. But the open banking assessments brilliant, I think we pull it on six months transactional data. And what we do is we something live for six weeks that side of it. So it’s a little bit of data. But already we’re seeing that the ones that have been set up manually, where customers might not have all the information to hand to fill out a payment plan versus the ones where it’s based on open banking. So it’s based on actuals versus estimates, you would expect the adherence rate or the cap rate to be a lot higher open banking, and we will see in six months or early on, we can see that it’s having an impact. I think for a customer, it’s probably a bit more eye opening, because you haven’t you think you’ve got an idea of what you’ve got spare. But then this is actually probably a maybe it’s a bit like, Oh, I didn’t realise that? And do you think

31:53
the digital approach kind of helps, because you can get into quite difficult conversations, when you actually look at people’s real transaction in terms of what you’re actually spending money on it. And it’s always a bit of a shock, when, if you look, your own bank statement could be very short, well, actually, I spend that much going to the supermarket, licence, whatever it was, right. And it was like a it can be it can be a shock, right? And it’s like, and that can lead to quite difficult conversation for a lot of folks, right. And you think the digital piece helps with that, because it’s kind of like it’s in your face, but it’s maybe a little bit easier to deal with.

32:23
Probably more inclined to lie when you choose on the phone to someone and you gotta say, Oh, I spend 200 pounds on for cigarettes and reinjure parliament for booze has been like, you’d probably be inclined to like, I’ll make it look lower and all this kind of stuff. Because you still some people might say embarrassed by the on the flip side, they might say it and then the edge of my challenge. I’m on it, and then it just doesn’t work. I think it does break down some barriers, because it’s easy to do,

32:50
as well. Well, I think also, obviously, my prediction that was 10 We’ll see increase in popularity as obviously Mark customer has become aware of what it is, but we’re already starting to see lenders through example open banking is is a must. So if you’ve got you’ve got to do the open banking assessment before they provide the loan. So we’ll start to see that girl and the knock on effect of that is well it was it was start seeing in our industry a little bit more as well because customers are used to it and they know what it is and what it can do.

33:27
It’s interesting so it’s all super interesting until it suddenly huge amounts of development is being done and this will you can see it moving forward. But my final question was a little bit around where do you think we go from here? Right so you’re obviously at the forefront around putting digital processes in from a collections point of view driving the drive drive in the industry from from that point of view but I mean what where do we go with the next five years what’s what’s what’s what’s the next thing for us to look out or what’s what’s in the back of your mind around where we go next?

33:59
Those are secrets we can’t tell you that everyone will be doing it then we won’t be we won’t be leading the way anymore that someone might be used to it.

34:10
So it’s a it’s a watch this space rather than another interview then that’s that’s that’s that’s

34:19
plenty to talk about over the next couple of years. That’s the good news, I guess.

34:24
Yeah. Very good. Well, guys, thank you very much, then then an hour and I really, really appreciate it. It’s fascinating to chat with you and hear about some of the things that you guys are up to so it’s it’s very it’s

34:39
really it’s been good chat.