One of the key values we deliver is our ability to use our Special Servicing experience and management strength to maximise portfolio performance and result in lower arrears, lower losses, improved confidence from Funders and added value to potential purchasers.
Even in its mortgages special servicing unit Bluestone Servicing deploys strategies often seen in higher intensity, unsecured collection operations. This approach includes contacting borrowers very quickly in the event of a default, immediate follow ups as soon as they break a promise, little reliance on letter programmes and a greater degree of reliance on visitation and call programmes.
Our collections approach is relationship based – we seek to develop a rapport with the customer, ensure that they prioritise our payments ahead of their other obligations, that they are managing their spending habits to liberate as much cash as possible, and move toward a speedy and efficient enforcement if necessary/applicable.
Bluestone has managed its arrears in-house since 2000, allowing it to develop a suite of industry best practice systems and processes, and to build up one of the best arrears management and enforcement teams in the market. The Bluestone Special Servicing team have more than 250 years of collective experience in managing arrears. In aggregate they have managed many hundreds of enforcements and many thousands of arrears customers over their careers in collections.
Being proactive in our management, we take factors into account such as the stage of the life cycle of the loan, prior performance and the borrower’s fulfilment of previous agreements. Our deep management expertise is supported by proactive and motivated collections teams. Our Special Servicing team manages arrears before the customer has missed a payment. Welcome calls are used to initiate a dialog with customers and to check contact and direct debit details, and borrowers who missed a payment several months previously receive reminder calls in advance of their due date, to ensure timely payment. Bluestone Servicing is one of the few lenders to have initiated SMS messages to our arrears customers, to ensure that all available channels of communication with a borrower are leveraged.
In addition to assisting us efficiently manage loans that have gone into arrears (reactive), our systems allow us to become proactive by managing borrowers based on their propensity to go into arrears.
Our technology platform has been heavily adapted to support our ‘high-touch’ arrears management approach. Because the system is fully integrated, a work task will show up on a collectors work queue moments after we are notified by the bank of a dishonoured payment. Experience has shown us that a difference of a day in contacting borrowers about a dishonoured payment is often the difference in being able to bring the loan current.
When a payment dishonours for a small shortfall or bad timing due to uncleared funds, it is significantly easier to get this corrected when contact is made early.
The system also tracks promises to pay and automatically creates a work task for our collectors if a promise has been broken, demonstrating to customers that we are completely focussed on their account.
Our extensive experience has allowed us to fine tune our processes and procedures, including the efficient presentation and marketing of property or other assets and negotiation strategies for private treaty and auction situations. We seek to maximise the proceeds to preserve any borrower equity available, and carefully balance a proactive and timely enforcement sale process with the need to ensure assets are well marketed, to ensure that all stakeholders’ interests are balanced.