A guide to auditing your in-house collections

Year after year, financial institution portfolios continue to grow—especially auto loans. According to Experian’s data for the first quarter of 2019, auto loan balances have soared to $1.18 trillion, increasing 6.5% throughout 2018. Unfortunately, as your portfolio grows, so does your delinquency risk.

Like many credit unions, you’re probably trying to determine if outsourcing various stages of collections makes sense or if keeping it in-house is the better option. And, if your portfolio is experiencing growth, you may be worried about scaling your department.

To evaluate your current strategy, consider what makes the most sense for your credit union in the following scenarios:

1. Who could make the most impact at various stages of collection?

Various stages of the collections life cycle require different contact strategies. Do you have the staff to make hundreds or thousands of calls a day? Maybe your staff can have a greater impact in the mid-or late-stage where you have more time to leverage relationships and creative methods. Identify your collection team’s strengths and weaknesses. Keep what your team is good at and consider outsourcing the rest.

 

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