FOREWORD

Nick Pilavidis FICM CCE Chief Executive Officer

Managing overdue credit, specifically customers experiencing financial hardship is the number one pressure facing consumer credit professionals and their teams. The peaks and troughs in levels of overdue credit impacts credit teams’ ability to achieve organisational objectives and support customers in financial distress.

A key determinant in resourcing and overall support of team’s ability to engage with customers in need of financial assistance is whether the number of contacts or expected number of contacts, is changing and what is an appropriate level of support for these front-line staff could be.

To inform credit professionals and the discussion on the levels of financial hardship the AICM commissioned this research project with the aim of developing indices that measure levels of overdue credit.

This first of its kind research is based on aggregate data of reported account repayment history across a variety of finance products in the Australian market leveraging data provided by Equifax and illion.

To understand the impact of the trends presented by the indices, specifically on financial distress, 10 professionals from a range of consumer credit providers and other stakeholders were interviewed by the research team.

The report provides a baseline which we aim to monitor in future projects.

On behalf of the AICM I thank the research team Andrew Grant and Luke Deer, Academics at The University of Sydney Business School and the professionals who contributed their insights to the report.

Nick Pilavidis Chief Executive Officer Australian Institute of Credit Management