Current Government policy has provided a steer to financial service providers, enabling them to announce payment holidays that can help customers who will struggle to pay their bills due to the pandemic.

The latest of these is a scheme that allows mortgage payments to be frozen for a period of time, with the customer paying the money owed back via deferred instalments at the end of the term or through an arrangement to repay the arrears at the end of the payment holiday. This provides short-term relief for those who can’t make their normal payments due to illness, loss of work, loss of income or time off caring for the more vulnerable among us.

Whilst good news for borrowers, it presents banks with logistical challenges, with many financial institutions reporting as much as a month’s worth of inbound customer requests for payment relief in a single day. This is further compounded by staff absences due to illness or the need to care for unwell family members. Ultimately, the customers that need a payment holiday can’t get through to someone to set it up.

Paylink intends to be proactive in meeting the needs of financial institutions, utilising and adapting existing platforms to help lenders meet these needs in a seamless manner, allowing you to set up new payment schedule for your customers with speed and efficiency.

The outbound contact occurs automatically via SMS or email, providing your customer with a simple path to giving you their details. Our affordability software – Embark – allows the agent or customer to provide all the information the bank needs to make a quick and informed decision. Complimented with CRA and Open Banking API’s, Embark allows you to gather the information you need with minimal manual intervention which – as highlighted by the current financial climate – will be of great use in terms of speed and reliability, especially when dealing with large quantity of customers applying for a payment holiday.

The software has a chat facility, which can be tailored to alert those who have already been contacted to discuss the best means for future communication. Demonstrating flexibility, all content can be individually adapted to the needs of the client and can be integrated seamlessly.

To discuss how our systems can benefit your processes, please contact us