Case Study: Intrum & Performance Management (Aryza Control)

“Sitting still is not an option in this organisation and market.”

 

Since 1 January 2022, Guy Colpaert has led Intrum Benelux. His mission is clear: to make Intrum the market leader in Belgium and the Netherlands. A conversation about that ambition, about why the force field in the field of credit management is more dynamic than ever and about the role Aryza Control can play in the necessary transparency.

Listed Intrum is Europe’s largest credit management service provider with 10,000 employees and 80,000 clients. In 2023, the company can look back on an impressive history of exactly 100 years. The last major development in that history was the merger of Sweden’s Intrum Justitia with Norway’s Lindorff in 2017, leading to the name change to Intrum a year later. In 2021, an important next step was taken when the 24 country organisations started to cooperate regionally on main lines. So too in the Benelux, where a single management team now leads the organisation in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Many differences

Guy Colpaert became managing director of Intrum Benelux in early 2022. He stresses that the cooperation between the country organisations was not a merger. “Belgium and the Netherlands differ too much from each other for that. In the business mix and in the customer mix, but also when it comes to IT infrastructure. On the one hand, we work on credit management services, ranging from debtor management to amicable collection and from judicial collection to long-term collection. On the other hand, we buy receivables which we then collect. In Belgium, servicing is dominant, in the Netherlands buying receivables.”

Gros works locally

Intrum’s Benelux organisation employs just under 300 people. Besides the branches in Belgium and the Netherlands, there are contact centres in Athens, in Malaga and on Mauritius (for Walloon customers), while the back office is located in Vilnius (Lithuania). “But the bulk works locally,” says Colpaert, “because we want the distance between our people with expertise and file knowledge and our clients and their customers to be as short as possible.”

Never a dull moment

Colpaert already had an impressive career with the organisation behind him when he became managing director Benelux. In 2001, his first position was that of finance director at the Belgian branch of then Intrum Justitia to oversee the integration of the acquired debt collection branch of Dun & Bradstreet. “Since then things have continued at a fast pace,” Colpaert says. “Sitting still is not an option in this organisation and in this market. Never a dull moment. It is a highly fluctuating environment in which we work. This certainly has to do with the strong regulation of our business. We work for clients who are themselves subject to heavy government regulation. Especially to protect consumers. Our regulations and our processes are constantly changing in that dynamic field. Another important factor in that constant change is that we keep up with all technological developments. For instance, we are now working extensively with robotics and chatbots and that goes on and on. As a result, we have to keep reinventing ourselves.”

Current developments

The dynamics in the field of credit management have only increased in recent years. In Belgium, a new law for the amicable recovery of consumer debts will come into force this autumn. In the Netherlands, the Wet kwaliteit incassodienstverlening (Collection Services Quality Act) is imminent. Colpaert: “All this is of course related to the great social debate about the debt industry and the desire to prevent consumer victimisation. Corona reinforced that, as did the energy crisis. We now live in a time when guarding consumers against abusive or illegal practices is top of mind. Alongside new legislation and public debate, new AI technology plays an important role. That affects us and that affects our clients and their customers. The next factor, which everyone is now dealing with, is the changed capital market with increased interest rates. That makes the playing field and financial levers very different from previous years. What I said: never a dull moment.”

Sustainable growth

Within that force field, Colpaert has been given a clear assignment, namely to become market leader in the Benelux with Intrum. Because although Intrum is the largest in Europe, it ranks third in Belgium and fifth in the Netherlands. “I have been given time to carry out that assignment, because Rome and Paris were obviously not built in a day. Moreover, we want to grow in a sustainable way, based on the needs and wishes of our clients. And surely these have changed in recent years. Many organisations struggle to keep up. For instance, the labour market is tough, everyone is fighting for the same people. A challenge in line with this concerns thorough knowledge of processes. In other words: the scarce supply of professionals. Technological innovation is also challenging. Most of our clients work with large, unwieldy and rigid ERP systems – even though technological development is light years faster than before. With our clients, all the pennies for development often go to the front end of their core business, not to credit management. We respond to all those needs and wants by offering integrated servicing solutions to our clients.”

Collection As A Service

With that integral offering, Intrum is able to take over all or part of the client’s credit management process, temporarily or otherwise. “We call that Collection As A Service,” says Colpaert. “Our approach to Collection As A Service is designed to completely unburden the client. But we can also be called in to eliminate regularly recurring peak loads, for example. We call it a sustainable solution because we include all aspects – technology, people, processes. Including all compliance with changed regulations.” Colpaert sees plenty of opportunities for Collection As A Service. First and foremost with clients who are, as he puts it, digital by default. “E-commerce companies, for example, organise themselves very lean. They come to us automatically. The same goes for telecoms and energy companies. The banking and insurance world is somewhat less so, but still, we are already in talks with most large financial institutions. After all, they see the storm coming, partly because European legislation is imminent requiring them to take non-performing loans off their balance sheets. In all these developments, we are leading the way as the European market leader. Of course, our competitors will start copying us. That is okay. After all, we will continue to innovate, by which time we will be much further ahead.”

Half a million receivables

Intrum cooperates with a large number of bailiffs for judicial collection when amicable collection proves impossible. To objectively measure the bailiffs’ performance for ongoing files, Intrum uses the software Aryza Control (formerly Cwize). Large numbers of files are involved – about half a million claims are currently recorded in Aryza Control. The information coming out of Aryza Control is now more important than ever, says Colpaert. “Precisely because of the pressure from society to save consumers from unnecessary costs. So you see that we are increasingly making agreements with bailiffs that for some files they will still look into whether amicable collection is still possible. After all, bailiffs have more powers than us, for instance to request information from the basic personal data register. Incidentally, we are in favour of debt collection companies also being given such powers, surrounded by all kinds of safeguards, of course. After all, then we will also have more opportunities to prevent unnecessary costs for consumers.”

Being in control

In Colpaert’s view, Aryza Control is a “very good solution” to make all these things transparent. “This also immediately makes the discussion a lot less subjective because you evaluate on the basis of mutually agreed data. After all, we want to be much more in control across the entire chain – from debtor management and amicable collection to judicial collection. Judicial collection may be the smallest link in that, but it is the phase where the most costs are incurred.”

Single view of data

Aryza Control unlocks the key data that bailiffs report on their files, both operational and financial. “This is not nice to have, it’s a must have,” Colpaert explains.  “We would prefer to know at any time what the financial footprint is at the judicial collection stage, as part of our sustainability approach. We also talk about this with our clients. In making socially responsible debt collection more sustainable, the goal should be that we go judicial as little as possible. That we can distinguish even better between people who cannot pay and people who do not want to pay. That we should ask ourselves whether we are going to collect from someone who is 85 or older. Or whether to keep charging interest once someone has started repaying. Transparency of what happens during judicial recovery helps us tremendously in answering those questions. Aryza Control provides us with that unified view of data which increases transparency. Of course, we still have wishes. For instance, we would like more possibilities to include agreements with our clients. The same goes for the SLAs with our partners. That way we can provide even better steering based on the parameters you agree with each other.”