Fintech Takes x C&R presents: What Africa Can Teach the Industry About Credit & Collections

Alex Johnson (0:00)

This episode is brought to you by C&R Software. More than just debt collection, C&R sets the global standard for AI native humanized credit management. They simplify the complex with end-to-end credit risk lifecycle support, powered by automated workflows, AI native intelligence, and real-time data-driven decisioning. Learn more at crsoftware.com.

Hello, and welcome back to our podcast series, Collections Conversations, sponsored by our friends at C&R Software. In today's episode, we continue the world tour that we've been on recently on this series, and take a trip to South Africa, and to a lesser extent, the entire continent of Africa. What is the current state of South African borrowers' financial health? How does the more variable nature of South Africans' income, and the prevalence of more informal activity in South Africa, impact considerations around affordability? What are the current best practices for loan servicing and collections among the South African lenders? Where can those best practices still improve? And what can South African lenders learn from lenders in other African countries? To answer these questions and many more, I was delighted to welcome Neré Jansen Van Vuuren, Head of Sales for Africa at C&R Software to the podcast. Neré and I had an absolutely lovely chat about what she's seen in the market she serves, how that compares to the rest of the world, and of course, how AI is changing everything. This is a good one. So without further ado, here is our newest episode of Collections Conversations.

This is Fintech Takes, the podcast keeping you in the loop on all the latest fintech trends, news, and ideas. I'm Alex Johnson, creator of the Fintech Takes newsletter, your host, and self-confessed fintech nerd.

Okay, Neré, thank you so much for joining me.

Neré Jansen Van Vuuren (2:03)

Thank you. Lovely to be here, Alex.

Alex Johnson (2:05)

Sometimes the recordings that we have to work through some technical issues for end up being the best recordings, and I have a very good feeling that that will be the case as well. So I'm glad we persisted through some technical issues. I am delighted to have you on the podcast, because we've been doing a bit of a survey almost of collections, recovery, servicing, everything that happens after the origination process, and in particular, we've been trying to bounce around different markets and talk to folks who have different experiences. So I'd love to start if you would just tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to focus on the post origination side of credit and lending.

Neré Jansen Van Vuuren (2:50)

Well, thank you, Alex. Well, look, to be fair, I've spent most of my career working for the banks and lenders across Africa, right? And over time, I really became less interested in the moment credit is actually granted, and much more interested in what happens afterwards, right? So because that is where the promise of inclusion actually is really tested. So if you think about it, it's easy. You can approve a loan in two ticks, right? And in minutes. But the real test actually comes when a salary is late, or maybe a small business that has a difficult month, or even if a harvest is delayed, right?

So that is when you discover whether the product and the servicing model genuinely fit the customer's life.

So because that is where real life shows up, customers don't live on spreadsheets. They lose jobs. Businesses have difficult months, right? Harvest is delayed and families face unexpected expenses. So I just really became fascinated by how many lenders can actually continue supporting customers through those moments. When still managing risk responsibility. Because it's not easy, right? So yeah, that's been my journey. And that's how I landed up here where I am.

Alex Johnson (4:18)

That's what brought you to us, which we're very grateful for. I mean, I will definitely add to what you said. I mean, I find that there's this strange inverse relationship in lending where the place in the process where institutions naturally try to invest the most is actually the spot where the customer or the prospective customer needs them the least in a lot of ways, right? Like when you're shopping around for credit, usually you have lots of different options. There's lots of people vying for your business. And so from the customer's perspective, you have lots of choices and you don't really need someone to be like there for you and to really invest in that moment. And then inversely, when the borrower has some challenge or something happens in their life, they lose a job, as you were saying, or the harvest is late or whatever, whatever the situation is, that is where the borrower really, that's where the rubber meets the road. That's where they want the lender to show up for them, to be invested in them. And I think the way institutions historically have looked at it is that, well, we already have the customer. And apart from the bare minimum, what we have to do to like manage the risk of this loan or whatever, we really shouldn't invest more than the bare minimum here. And so there is this strange dichotomy between the way that I think customers experience the credit life cycle versus the way that lenders perceive the credit life cycle and invest in the credit life cycle. I want to dig a little deeper into the market, obviously, that you've spent your career in because it's a little outside my direct experience.