Dry collections need to understand one thing: when the ability to repay weakens, the interaction with the borrower will become more sensitive. Li Yang (pseudonym) is a relationship manager of a joint-stock bank, who has been deeply involved in pre-loan and post-loan for many years, and in recent years, the overdue and non-performing rates of retail businesses such as consumer loans and credit cards have continued to rise, making the collection work more complicated and putting forward higher requirements for banks.
Obviously, relying on traditional collection methods alone is no longer enough to deal with it, and this year, Li Yang's bank began to strengthen its own collection team and introduced more high-level professionals to improve its management level. This situation is not an isolated case, in the major recruitment platforms, "debt collectors" have become the "sweet and sweet" of banks' attention, and positions such as litigation management posts and bank telephone reminder specialists are being recruited......
Build a team to make a loan
"Positive positions are recruiting", "good treatment and high welfare", on the recruitment website, the recruitment of bank collection personnel is in full swing, from the information released by major headhunters, in addition to the more conventional telephone reminder specialists, some management posts have also become the direction of the bank's attention.
A bank is recruiting for a full-time litigation management position, which is mainly responsible for assisting in the centralized civil litigation of overdue credit card customers; Guide all branches to carry out judicial collection of overdue credit card customers in their territories; Assist in the overall planning of judicial collection strategies, and be responsible for formulating and maintaining judicial collection-related system documents. In terms of resume, applicants with a full-time bachelor's degree or above, and major in law, finance, economics, auditing, data analysis, and more than three years of work experience are preferred.
Although the collection post being recruited by another bank does not have a clear "threshold" requirement for academic qualifications, it also notes that the applicant needs to have more than one year of collection experience, and needs to follow up on the whole process of overdue collection, outsourcing collection, litigation clearance, write-off, and outright, and complete the collection indicators.
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The salary of bank collection positions is mainly basic salary + commission, and the basic salary in first-tier cities is mostly 8,000-10,000 yuan, and the second- and third-tier cities are mainly distributed in about 3,000-5,000 yuan. For shorter overdue loans (within 30 days), the bank will first send a reminder through phone calls, text messages or voice robots. As the overdue time grows (e.g. up to 60 days), it will be transferred to the bank's internal staff to contact the customer directly and try to negotiate a solution.
"My department mainly collects overdue loans for about 60 days, which are divided into two ways: telephone collection and door-to-door collection," Li Yang told Beijing Business Daily.
Since the beginning of this year, a number of banks, including Bank of Communications, China Everbright Bank, Minsheng Bank, WeBank, and Hunan Sanxiang Bank, have successively released recruitment information on collection personnel, and have set certain "threshold" conditions, including that applicants need to have financial expertise, collection work experience, data processing and analysis capabilities, etc.
Su Xiaorui, a senior researcher at Suxi Zhiyan, said that the increase in the recruitment of collection talents reflects the full attention of banks to the post-loan management business, and is also a reflection of the decline in asset quality since the beginning of this year. Consolidating the construction of talents in the field of collection can strengthen the institution's own post-loan management level. In addition, according to the recruitment requirements, some banking institutions also expect to help better realize the management of outsourcing collection teams through the introduction of these talents.
It complements outsourced collection
The establishment of the bank's own collection team reflects that the financial industry as a whole is developing in a more professional and refined direction.
However, from the actual situation, outsourcing collection is still the current mainstream. Within banks, when the loan is overdue for more than 90 days, the possibility of loan recovery is reduced, and more resources and skills need to be invested in collection, and such cases are generally more likely to be entrusted to external professional collection agencies. First of all, the outsourcing agency will contact the borrower by phone to try to negotiate repayment, and if the telephone collection is unsuccessful, the bank will entrust the outsourcing agency to conduct door-to-door collection. For customers who are still unable to collect money from door-to-door collection and meet the conditions for judicial litigation or reporting to the public security, further local judicial collection or reporting procedures will be adopted.
When selecting an outsourcing agency, the bank will conduct a comprehensive evaluation based on factors such as the collection volume of each region, the amount collection rate of the outsourcing agency, the quality of the service, and the allocation of collection resources, and adjust the collection allocation amount of each outsourcing agency accordingly.
Recently, Bank of Communications released the "Announcement of Third-Party Collection Agencies for Personal Loan (Consumer Loan) Cooperation of Bank of Communications" on its official website, pointing out that if a customer is involved in non-repayment or other outstanding personal loan (personal consumption loan) payments, the bank may entrust a third party to collect the arrears from the customer through telephone reminders, letters, text messages, emails, door-to-door visits or judicial channels. In order to strictly manage third-party companies and strengthen information disclosure, Bank of Communications announced 15 cooperative third-party collection agencies, located in Beijing, Hefei, Shenzhen, Shandong, Nanchang and other places.
The Postal Savings Bank has also recently announced the addition and cancellation of credit card outbound numbers, which the bank said is to improve service efficiency and provide customers with more professional asset preservation services. Harbin Bank, Tianjin Binhai Rural Commercial Bank, and Bank of Shanghai have also successively disclosed the names and contact information of cooperative collection agencies.
Transparent management of outsourcing institutions is conducive to safeguarding the rights and interests of consumers and promoting the healthy development of the entire social credit system. A banker said that in the next step, it is expected that the bank will continue to develop its own collection team and introduce more senior talents to improve the management level. At the same time, through the establishment of a stricter outsourcing agency management system and technical platform, the supervision of outsourcing collection is strengthened to ensure that the entire collection process meets the requirements of laws and regulations.
Wang Deyue, a lawyer at Beijing Xunzhen Law Firm, pointed out that in the current economic environment, the relationship between self-built collection teams and outsourced collection is complementary rather than replaceable. The in-house team has better control over the collection process, protects the bank's brand image, and provides greater confidentiality of customer information. Outsourcing collection can make use of the resources and experience of professional institutions to improve the efficiency of collection.
Asset quality is under pressure and anxiety is hard to dissipate
Judging from the 42 A-share listed banks that have released semi-annual report data, although the overall non-performing rate is showing a downward trend, some risk points still exist in the retail sector. In terms of types, the non-performing ratios of personal loans of the six state-owned banks, namely the Industrial Bank, the Agricultural Bank, the China Banks, the Construction Bank, the Communications Bank and the Postal Savings Bank, all increased compared with the end of the previous year. The same situation has occurred in a number of joint-stock banks and urban and rural commercial banks. The areas where non-performing loans are concentrated mainly include credit cards, consumer credit, and business loans.
In the face of continued pressure on the asset quality of personal loans, banks need to pay more attention to compliance while stepping up collection efforts. The above-mentioned bankers bluntly said that with the introduction of the "Personal Information Protection Law" and the improvement of personal information protection awareness, the operation in the industry has become more standardized, in addition to strengthening the management of its own collection process, it has also adopted technical means such as voiceprint recognition to prevent the risk of agency complaints. For banks, the next step is to establish a more humane and efficient collection mechanism, while also encouraging borrowers to actively face financial difficulties and seek reasonable solutions.
Wang Deyue suggested that with the continuous strengthening of regulatory policies, banks need to ensure that collection activities comply with laws and regulations and avoid infringing on consumer rights. First of all, big data and artificial intelligence technology should be used to improve the accuracy and efficiency of collection. Second, a complete set of industry standards and codes of conduct should be established to clearly define the legal boundaries of collection behavior. At the same time, there is a need to set up monitoring mechanisms, such as consumer rights protection organizations, to monitor and evaluate collection practices. Increase transparency in the collection business so that consumers are aware of their rights and the collection process, so they can complain and defend their rights in the event of misconduct.
"In the future, the compliance of bank collection business will continue to improve, in addition, with the continuous improvement of artificial intelligence and other technologies, AI tools are gradually being used in early collection communication, and the way AI intervenes can promote more standard communication and avoid emotional communication among some collectors," said Su Xiaorui.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Song Yitong