Rob Tyrrell, co-founder of Haboo Money, explains how changing income patterns, gig economy work, supplementary income and unpredictable earnings create challenges for traditional monthly repayment models.
The discussion explores how personalised repayment tools, digital wallets, self-service journeys and data-led insights can help customers remain on track, reduce missed payments and support better outcomes.
It also considers the role of open banking, real-time dashboards, AI, API costs, data security and integration with legacy lender systems.
Find out more about Haboo Money -> Here.
Key Take Aways
- Haboo Money addresses a structural gap in collections: repayment experiences have remained largely static while credit distribution has innovated.
- The firm’s proposition centres on personalised, flexible repayment journeys that align better with variable and unpredictable income patterns.
- The changing consumer income profile is central to the business case, with many customers no longer receiving only 12 or 13 predictable income moments each year.
- Flexible repayment tools can reduce the risk of missed or late payments while improving customer outcomes across prime and subprime segments.
- The model gives customers greater autonomy, allowing them to adjust payments, make micro-payments and remain on track without needing to contact customer service.
- A “save as you repay” wallet creates a dedicated space for customers to set aside funds for future repayments.
- Customers can build a buffer through small overpayments, supporting resilience if income shocks occur.
- The approach changes the tone of collections from repeated “please pay” messaging to a more supportive, customer-led repayment conversation.
- The model supports earlier intervention by identifying potential repayment issues before the due date, rather than waiting for a missed payment.
- Data from customer engagement, transactions and digital behaviour can create a stronger forward view of repayment risk.
- The proposition is increasingly relevant beyond arrears populations, including good payers with variable or supplementary income.
- Haboo Money sees scalable personalisation as the objective, with human teams focused on higher-value exceptions rather than routine payment administration.
Innovation
- Personalised repayment experience delivered as an off-the-shelf capability for lenders and credit providers.
- Self-service repayment tools allowing customers to control how, when and how much they repay.
- Back-end orchestration that preserves the lender’s expected monthly payment while allowing customer-side flexibility.
- A digital wallet held in the customer’s name to support dedicated repayment saving.
- “Save as you repay” functionality that enables customers to overpay or smooth payments across income cycles.
- Micro-saving linked to repayment plans, creating protection against income shocks and potential early repayment.
- Use of engagement and transaction data to anticipate missed payments before the billing date.
- Omni-channel engagement across SMS, email and notifications to build an early picture of customer disengagement.
- Open banking-driven repayment journeys that could recognise income moments and automatically sweep a small portion into a repayment wallet.
- Real-time dashboard views for customer care teams, turning customer behaviour into operational insight.
- Scalable personalisation designed to support enterprise-level collections environments.
- Human exception management, where digital tools handle routine journeys and staff focus on complex or vulnerable customer situations.
Key Statistics
- Record numbers of people are earning outside traditional 12 or 13 income moments each year.
- One customer example described a single working mother who typically worked 10 out of 12 months.
- A repayment plan example referenced £25 per week against a £100 requirement.
- Increasing this to £30 per week could create £20 of rainy-day funds each month.
- Customers were described as making repayment changes at any time, including multiple changes within a month.
- A customer risk signal could be generated by day 10 or day 15 ahead of a payment due on day 30.
- The discussion referenced customers being contacted three, four or five times with the same “please pay” message.
- The discussion referenced mortgage customers coming off five-year deals from 2020.
- AI spend was discussed in terms of potential 90% labour-cost savings.
- One AI model API cost example was described as increasing by a factor of five.
- One-bill anxiety was described as the anxiety caused by a large repayment amount at the end of the month.
- Haboo Money went live last year with a consumer-facing application before developing dashboard views for customer care teams.
Key Discussion Points
- How changing income patterns make traditional fixed repayment structures less suitable for many customers.
- Why collections has been under-innovated compared with credit distribution.
- How flexible repayment tools can improve customer stickiness and customer outcomes.
- The importance of combining repayment flexibility with a strong digital experience.
- How customers often understand their own income cycles better than firms assume.
- Why self-service tools can reduce operational friction and avoid unnecessary customer contact.
- How jam-jar style money management is reflected in customer behaviour.
- The role of a dedicated repayment wallet in helping customers save for future obligations.
- How repayment flexibility can shift collections from reactive recovery to proactive support.
- The value of engagement and transaction data in identifying risk before missed payments occur.
- The opportunity to surface vulnerability or customer challenges earlier to customer care teams.
- The need to be careful with AI-led conversations, particularly where vulnerability is involved.
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