Case Study: Riverty & Performance Management (Aryza Control)
-Pascal Neijman, Managing Director Benelux & France, Riverty
“A natural sense of freedom for sustainable financial choices.”
With offices in 13 countries, Riverty is one of the leading European fin-techs, offering payment solutions for consumers on the one hand and collection and accounting as a service for businesses on the other. The subsidiary of German media company Bertelsmann has been operating in the Netherlands since 2016, first under the name Arvato/Infoscore/AfterPay and from the end of 2022 as Riverty. For the exchange of collection data with bailiff offices, Riverty has long been a user of Aryza Control.
Within the large Bertelsmann group, the financial services division has experienced stormy growth in recent years, both organically and through acquisitions. Riverty was chosen as the company name, a name that reflects the flowing stream of a river as a symbol of a natural sense of freedom and flexibility for sustainable financial choices. For consumers, it offers products in the areas of After Payment, Parking Payment (parking tickets) and Back in Flow for grip on personal finances. In addition, Riverty provides collection services and solutions for automated order-to-cash processes under the name Accounting as a Service.
Managing Director Benelux & France
Together with Lenhard Hubscher, Pascal Neijman leads the Dutch organisation, with offices in Amsterdam and Heerenveen and operational responsibilities for the Dutch, Belgian and French markets. As a member of the Enterprise Sales Team, Neijman is also responsible for major international clients. Within the product portfolio, his main focus is on debt collection services. Because even when it comes to debt collection, Riverty is a major player in Europe. For instance, more than 10 million new receivables are processed annually, including 350,000 in the Netherlands, with a total value of more than EUR 2 billion.
Debt collection as a fluke
Neijman can look back on an impressive career in finance. His career started in the banking sector, followed by complex financial interim assignments for large US companies. He then worked at various debt collection companies. “With debt collection, I came into contact by chance,” he says. “There was a financial dispute between a leasing company and a transport company in which I was involved as a shareholder.”
Energising journey
Neijman’s employer’s successful growth in the Netherlands culminated in what he calls “another exciting journey”. “To this I naturally include the change of direction, structure and name in 2022. We are already far advanced in our transformation to uniform European solutions for all payment and collection services and to a uniform platform for Accounting as a Service. The organisation required for this is also in place, with a sales organisation offering all those products to the various markets and a service group implementing the product locally and managing the clients.”
Rebranding and repositioning
The rebranding has focused first on consumer payment services to give Riverty, as the new name for AfterPay, a solid start as a new brand. With that, the company has come a long way, so attention is now shifting to the market positioning of its other products, including its debt collection services. “Incidentally, there is sometimes a misunderstanding in the market,” says Neijman, “that the debt collection that Riverty does mainly concerns its own files arising from our payment services. That is not true; external clients are much more important to us. On a European scale, more than 75 per cent of all claims we collect come from other companies. Riverty’s strength is mainly in collecting large numbers of receivables from consumers of smaller amounts, around 200 euros on average. These are mainly from customers such as telecom providers, energy suppliers, banks, insurers and online retailers. Riverty is very well equipped to process those high volumes with low ticket values for these types of clients. Traditionally, we have therefore had a strong focus on far-reaching digitalisation and automation, for which we also have all the knowledge in-house.”
Inclusive approach to economic growth
Part of the 2022 repositioning was a sharpening of Riverty’s vision, based on the importance of economic growth for all as the basis for prosperity. Neijman: “When people face financial setbacks for whatever reason, they need help because otherwise they will be excluded from participating in that prosperity. Our job is to help those clients – we deliberately don’t call them debtors – regain perspective. We call that back in flow, as our approach to socially responsible debt collection. It requires financial solutions that are bearable and therefore sustainable. That applies to our post-payment services, but also when it comes to debt collection. In doing so, we need to maintain the right balance in debt collection for our clients on the one hand and that social responsibility on the other. Even if the amicable process has not provided a solution.”
Transfer to bailiffs
If all efforts in its own amicable process are unsuccessful, Riverty transfers the files in the Netherlands to two bailiff offices. Neijman: “The bailiff has more powers by law, for example to check whether the data in the file corresponds to the officially registered personal information. At that stage, after subpoenas, the bailiff can often still make agreements with the client about sustainable financial solutions. As a result, relatively very few of our cases end up going to court.”
Pioneering with Aryza Control
For the distribution and monitoring of files at the two bailiff offices, Riverty uses Aryza Control. This software is deployable in the complete chain of credit management, handles the exchange of all data between all parties involved and provides daily insight into the status of transferred files. “We have been working with it for a long time,” says Neijman. “We were even one of the first users in the debt collection market. Consultation with Aryza on day-to-day matters is always good and personal. They think along and if there are problems they solve them quickly. We use the reporting tool in Aryza Control when it comes to bailiffs’ specific data. We also include that data in our own data warehouse, which guarantees integrated chain reports. Based on the information from Aryza Control, we determine the distribution of files. In principle, we do this fifty-fifty, but we do distinguish between types of files in which one bailiff is better than another. That information also comes from Aryza Control.”
Daily updates, daily remittances
Riverty uses Aryza Control to ensure that the procedures followed by bailiffs are carried out as agreed, that the collection costs for consumers are reasonable and that the overall process is and remains effective and efficient. Neijman: “This way, we also avoid getting bogged down in endless procedures that only generate costs and no results. That benefits no one. We receive daily updates from the bailiffs via Aryza Control, to which we also link a daily remittance of funds where no costs may be settled. We keep billing strictly separate from the remittance of funds, that way there is no mixing of money flows in any way. All money that comes in after actions by the bailiffs comes 100 per cent to us, after which we settle with the bailiffs by sending invoices.”
Making time for personal assistance
The approach to working with bailiffs is part of Riverty’s responsibility to get people in debt back on the path to financial freedom through a fair debt collection process. “That takes extra time and extra money,” says Neijman. “That’s why we deploy digitalisation, segmentation and automation in a targeted way to free up time to support customers who need personal help. This goes, for example, through smart customer activation for person-to-person communication, digital self-service for customers who like to search for a solution anonymously themselves, budget coaches when human contact is needed, financial education and smart request management based on algorithms.”
Showing empathy and listening
When dealing with customers, Riverty puts empathy, helpfulness and honesty at the centre as much as possible. According to Pascal Neijman, these are not talk for the stage. “Look, very often arrears are part of a larger problem with a customer. Debts are mainly caused by unforeseen circumstances. Think loss of a job, illness or divorce. But there can also be issues that are completely beyond your control as an individual, such as high inflation or rapidly rising energy prices. By showing empathy, listening and above all not judging, you get a better understanding of the cause of late payments. If you can do that, the customer feels trust, which in turn means they are more likely to open up and ask for help. That is then the start for a sustainable solution. By the way, we cannot do this alone; social debt collection is a responsibility of all parties in the market. To start with, we should agree on a uniform definition. A survey at the last Credit Expo among market players showed that 71 per cent are actively working to protect consumers from problematic debts. But at the same time, 81 per cent feel that the market is not cooperating sufficiently in this area. As far as we are concerned, the government should play an important role in this. Not only by taking the lead in market-wide cooperation, but also by creating a level playing field. It is of course strange that the government’s own debt collection is subject to broader rules than the market. Also, the regulatory burden on our sector is ever increasing, think of the WKI, without in any way extending our mandate. For instance, we are expected to communicate with customers as much as possible on the basis of the correct data, but we are extremely limited in our ability to check it. There is still a world to be won there.”