Credit Management
Data – it’s the new gold As the saying goes, ‘data is the new gold’… and there is certainly a rich seam running through Australia’s business sector. Two people in the ‘data gold mine’ are Barrett Hasseldine and Louis Tsang from illion. They are accomplished Data Scientists who spend many hours digging out nuggets of truth and polishing them for credit managers in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Canada. We took some time to catch up with both of them to understand the important role that data now has for credit managers. LOUIS TSANG Some people have described COVID-19 as the ‘great disruptor’. What do you think it has done for credit managers in the lending space? Is there more ‘hidden risk’ now?
Louis Tsang
COVID-19 really has disrupted how consumers and businesses manage money and credit – and some of the trends we have observed over the last 12-24 months are here to stay. Buy-now-pay-later schemes have exploded in popularity
over the past 24 months, with a myriad of providers offering their own slightly different products – to the extent that some of these products would even raise a chuckle (“Drink Now Pay Later” comes to mind). BNPL doesn’t seem like it is replacing traditional credit card offerings in any permanent manner, but it appears to be meeting the needs of particular groups wanting to spend without larger immediate outlays. What is certain is that BNPL is here to stay. I think product and credit managers ➤
April 2022 • CREDIT MANAGEMENT IN AUSTRALIA 21
