Credit Unions

4 essentials for customer lending limits and successful cross-selling

Last January, I published an article in the Credit Union Journal covering the trend among banks to return to portfolio growth. Over the year, the desire to return to portfolio growth and maximize customer relationships continues to be a strong focus, especially in mature credit markets, such as the...read more

Navigating the plethora of skip tracing data sources

All skip tracing data is the same, right? Not exactly. While there are many sources of consumer contact data available to debt collectors, the quality, freshness, depth and breadth can vary significantly. Just as importantly, what you ultimately do or don't do with the data depends on several...read more

The power of credit attributes in the decision process

In my last post, I covered the importance of using quality credit attributes to gain greater accuracy in risk models.  Credit attributes are also powerful in strengthening the decision process by providing granular views on consumers based on unique behavior characteristics.  Effective uses include...read more

Improve customer loyalty by blending art and science

Research shows that investing in superior customer management easily can exceed returns of 20 percent in the first year of implementation.  A return that compounds in subsequent years as a results of customer-centric strategies that drive customer's loyalty, new customer referrals, and increased...read more

Credit attributes: Analytical decisioning building blocks

As building blocks to any predictive model development, it goes without saying that the better the predictive variables, also known as attributes, the more accurate the predictions. For many predictive analytic modeling shops, attributes are a key differentiator to model performance versus the...read more

Cell phones and debt collection: Seeking Mr. Goodbar’s number

It comes as no surprise to anyone that cell phone usage continues to rise, while at the same time the usage of wire lines, or what used to be affectionately known as POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), continues to decline. Some recent statistics, supplied by the CDC show that: 34% of all households...read more

Two key behavioral trends most lenders forget to evaluate

As the economy recovers from the recession, consumers are becoming more responsible with their credit card usage; credit card debts have not increased and delinquency rates have declined. Delinquency rates as a percentage of balances continue to decline with the short term 30-59 DPD period, now at...read more

Everything you wanted to know about credit scores but were afraid to ask - part II

Part 2:  Common myths about credit risk scores and how to educate consumers In light of what I've heard in the marketplace through the years, I wanted to provide some information to help 'debunk' some common myths about credit scores. Myth: There is only one credit score Reality: There are multiple...read more

Can credit education help collectors increase payments?

Let’s face it, debt collectors often get a bad rap.  Sure, some of it is deserved, but the majority of the nation’s estimated 157,000 collectors strive to do their job in a way that will satisfy both their employer and the debtor.  One way to improve collector/debtor interaction is for the collector...read more

Reducing retention risk by listening to the voice of the consumer

It has been over a year that in Zuccotti Park the Occupy Wall Street crowd made their voices heard.  At the anniversary point of that movement, there has been a lot of debate on if the protest has fizzled away or is still alive and planning its next step.  Either way, it cannot be ignored that it...read more