JOHANNESBURG, March 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Absa Bank, one of Africa's largest financial groups, has
transformed its collections operations working with global
analytics software firm FICO. After three months of deploying FICO®
Customer Communication Services (CCS) and making process changes,
self-paying customers nearly doubled, from 23 percent to 43
percent, and immediately reduced impairment charges, resulting in a
three-month ROI of 29:1. As COVID-19 hit Africa, the FICO solution enabled Absa to roll
out payment relief initiatives and communicate with distressed
customers, meeting its vision of 'Housing the Nation'. For its
achievements, Absa Bank has won the
2021 FICO® Decisions Award for Debt Collection.
More information:
https://www.fico.com/en/solutions/customer-communications-for-debt-collection-and-recovery
"Recently, Absa embarked on a three-year journey to transform
its collections estate into the best-in-class in the world,"
said Sibulelo Ncamani, a change lead in the Collections
Transformation Programme at Absa. "We selected FICO as our
strategic partner for this journey, focusing mainly on analytics,
operations and technology.
"One of the solutions we chose is the FICO Customer
Communications Services, which our Home Loans portfolio implemented
first. We sought to achieve a digital, omnichannel capability that
will enable 24/7 access to our distressed customers to assist in
their time of need. This capability was a crucial component to the
Absa Home Loans business vision of 'Housing the Nation' and more
specifically for Home Loans collections and recoveries."
Improving Communications in Collections
Communications is the key to effective collections, and Absa
needed to break down siloed communication channels, create
profile-specific communication strategies, and execute real-time
processes. Automation was important, as was learning from response
and interaction data to see what worked and which channels
customers preferred.
FICO® Customer Communication Services (CCS), integrated
with FICO® Debt Manager™, enabled Absa to set up different
treatment strategies for customers who were at different risk
levels and who had different reasons for being in arrears,
including:
- Technical arrears, such as delayed inter-bank payments.
- Salary dates that had moved.
- Customers who simply forgot to pay and require a nudge or
reminder for payment.
- More severe types of distress such as reduced working hours or
even unemployment.
Using FICO CCS's omnichannel capability, Absa sent customers
different combinations of static messages, interactive messages and
interactive voice recordings, allowing customers to self-pay before
being worked by an agent. Customers could also make a payment
arrangement without having to talk to an agent.
"We saw fantastic results from our initial trial," said
Ncamani. "Removing accounts from the dialler resulted in a
26 percent reduction in call center effort, without a reduction in
customers' payment performance. By automating more work, we also
saw our team's morale improve, as more meaningful work was provided
to agents."
Meeting the COVID-19 Challenge
When South Africa went into
hard lockdown at the end of March
2020, it placed a severe constraint on the collection team's
operational capacity, at a time of unprecedented distress for
customers. "More of our customers than ever were in danger of
losing their homes due to non-payment,"
said Ncamani. "Again, FICO CCS was able to
accommodate Absa Home Loans. By increasing our capacity through
automation, we were able to focus on severely distressed customers
and roll out payment relief initiatives as part of our COVID-19
response. FICO CCS also acted as a channel of engagement for
distressed customers looking for assistance on managing their bond
repayments. FICO CCS enabled us to do 'business as usual'
collections in a period that was anything but usual."
Absa plans to expand FICO CCS to more customer segments as it
prepares for any future increase in delinquencies following
post-COVID-19 stress. The capacity saving expected from FICO CCS
will allow the business to promote agents from pre-legal
collections to legal recoveries.
"This will further improve the colleague experience and assist
our business in the area that is expected to be under strain for an
extended period of time post-COVID-19,"
said Ncamani. "In addition, we will expand FICO
CCS strategies to include automated forbearance offerings and
deceased estate management, which are highly manual processes
today. And we will use the data generated by CCS to develop
interaction models that will allow us to offer the right customer
the right solution through the right communication channel."
"Absa Bank kept more customers in
their homes during an unprecedented period of anxiety and financial
stress," said Nikhil Behl, chief
marketing officer at FICO. "That is an achievement that goes
beyond profit margins — the bank is truly a force for social good.
We at FICO are honored that our technology could play a part."
"ABSA understands the sensitivity of the collection process and
the importance of reaching a customer as quickly as possible," said
Tiffani Montez, banking analyst
at Aite and one of the FICO Decisions Awards judges.
"They were able to take a manual collections process and automate
customer outreach with a high-touch, flexible communication model.
In addition, they were able to reduce reliance on having an agent
take payment by giving the customer the ability to review options
and make payment."
FICO® Customer Communication Services, part of FICO's solutions
for debt collection and recovery, enables businesses to orchestrate
communication strategies with different channel mixes, follow
consumers if they switch channels, and measure results in a unified
approach across channels. Collections teams can conduct any number
of dialogues through online and mobile channels with the
efficiency, courtesy, and compliance of their best agents.
About Absa Bank
Absa is one of Africa's largest
diversified financial services groups with a presence in 12
countries across the continent and around 42 000 employees. The
company is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and was
founded in 1991. The company offers it clients a range of
retail, business, corporate and investment, and wealth management
solutions. https://www.absa.co.za/personal/
About the FICO® Decisions Awards
The FICO Decisions Awards recognize organizations that are
achieving remarkable success using FICO solutions. A panel of
independent judges with deep industry expertise evaluates
nominations based upon measurable improvement in key metrics;
demonstrated use of best practices; project scale, depth and
breadth; and innovative uses of technology. The 2021 judges
are:
- Prasanna Dhoré, Chief Data & Analytics and
Innovation Officer, Equifax
- David Dittmann, vice
president, Data & Analytics, P&G (2019 winner)
- René Javier Guzmán, market & liquidity risks
director at Banreservas (2019 winner)
- Tomas Klinger, decision
science and data director at Home Credit (2019
winner)
- Marcel Le Gouais, managing editor at Credit
Strategy
- Tiffani Montez, banking
analyst at Aite
- Lisa Morgan, journalist
& analyst at InformationWeek
- Ignazio Provinzano, head
of risk operations at Swisscard (2019 winner)
The winners of the FICO Decisions Awards will be spotlighted at
and win tickets to FICO® World 2021, the Decisions Conference,
November 2021 in Orlando, Florida.
About FICO
FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and
businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956 and based in
Silicon Valley, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive
analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO
holds more than 195 US and foreign patents on technologies that
increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for
businesses in financial services, manufacturing,
telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries.
Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 120 countries do
everything from protecting 2.6 billion payment cards from fraud, to
helping people get credit, to ensuring that millions of airplanes
and rental cars are in the right place at the right time.
Learn more at www.fico.com.
FICO and Debt Manager are registered trademarks or trademarks of
Fair Isaac Corporation in the US and other countries.
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