Navigating financial vulnerability: Atto & elanev's real-time approach

Amidst the turbulence of the cost of living crisis, the persistent challenges of the post-pandemic world, and the unpredictable economic landscape, organisations find themselves under mounting pressure to not just react but actively manage and evaluate the financial vulnerability of their customers.

Atto, partnering with elanev, steps into this arena with a collaborative proposition, using open banking data to redefine how financial distress is recognised and addressed.

The current landscape of financial vulnerability assessment

In the past, checking if a customer could afford to repay was as straightforward as a credit check. Now, with over 27million consumers displaying signs of vulnerability, providers have to dive into a customer’s financial world, considering everything beyond previous payment performance.

Self-declared information gives a peek into affordability and vulnerability, but this is costly, time consuming and difficult to validate.

Automation to optimise customer income

Atto and elanev's partnership introduces a modern, real-time approach that taps into open banking data, providing a convenient way for customers to share information on their financial resilience with providers. With open banking in play, the tedious, costly task of manually reviewing financial statements and lengthy, intrusive conversations become a thing of the past, offering providers a real-time, secure, and validated snapshot of their financial standing.

Here's how it works: clients guide their customers in need towards the Atto widget. elanev steps in, leveraging the customer's banking data alongside their own insights to gauge financial strength and vulnerability.

The partnership delivers more than just financial insight, automation and cost saving; it can help customers optimise their income. According to research from Policy in Practice Ltd, there is £19billion of support that goes unclaimed each year. The partnership combines open banking technology and elanev’s decisioning capability, as well Policy In Practice Ltd’s insights, to provide help to those vulnerable consumers who need it.

So, the process involves creating a Standard Financial Statement (SFS), checking eligibility for social tariffs, and pre-populating appropriate application forms – all unfolding instantly through user-friendly REST APIs or through offline processes. This collaboration isn’t just streamlining processes; it’s rewriting the script on how financial support is provided, with conversion rates as high as 80%, delivered quicker, conveniently, and with real-time insights.

Streamlining the assessment process

Traditionally, the manual process of financial vulnerability assessment took up to 45 minutes per customer, costing up to £20 each. In contrast, the elanevIDV | Atto process takes seconds, costing as little as £3 per customer. This efficiency is crucial for providers looking to reduce costs and, more importantly, support customers in breaking the cycle of debt, thereby improving customer wellness.

Key benefits of the joint proposition

The joint proposition brings several key benefits to providers:

1. Cost-efficiency: The streamlined process significantly reduces the time and cost associated with manual assessments, offering substantial savings.

2. Real-time insights: The use of open banking data ensures up-to-date and accurate information, allowing providers to make faster and more informed decisions.

3. Comprehensive vulnerability assessment: The platform assesses financial resilience against clients' predefined scorecards, aligning with forbearance/management strategies. It also populates the MaPS SFS, assesses social tariffs eligibility, and identifies potential state benefits.

4. Configurability: Clients can configure income rules, align expenditures to SFS standards, and tailor the scorecard rules to their own policies.

5. Identifying external debt management plans: The platform helps identify customers with external debt management plans or insolvency alerts without retaining customer data.

Wrap

In the ever-evolving landscape of economic uncertainties, providers face a new frontier in understanding and addressing their customers' financial resilience. Atto, in tandem with elanev, come armed with a tailor-made proposition that reshapes how financial distress is validated.

This is more than just a tool; it's an ally for consumers and providers alike, offering configurability, automating repayment decisions, optimising income and championing a customer-centric approach.

To find out more get in touch here.