COVID-19: How Auriemma Roundtables is Building Solutions with the Industry

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has created major disruptions to the payments and lending industries, and the challenges continue to evolve in real time. In response, organizations are enacting business continuity playbooks and large-scale relief programs in a never-before-seen environment combining a global pandemic with an economic slowdown.

Auriemma Roundtables, which has served the consumer finance ecosystem since 1992, quickly adjusted its business model to work within the current paradigm by hosting virtual meetings on specific issues stemming from the virus impacts. The company is also introducing a set of Executive KPIs that will track performance on core functions.

In the last month, Auriemma Roundtables has organized its membership communities to tackle the new challenges facing the industry. The company has held more than 60 virtual sessions for hundreds of client participants, including card issuers, auto lenders, consumer banks, fintechs and brand partners.  In addition, the Roundtables team escalated the use of instant polling and peer surveys to deliver ongoing, real-time data and insights throughout the crisis.

Highlights of these activities include:

• More than 180 participants in a recent Credit Bureau Reporting virtual session to discuss implications of the recently passed CARES Act, tradeline suppressions, and use of the AW comment code.
• Nearly 30 lenders in a virtual Card Fraud Control session focused on fraud trends (including phishing attacks ‘piggybacking’ on COVID-19 hysteria), as well as potential fraud policy changes. Bank Fraud Control members have prepared for stimulus checks by focusing on verification with the treasury and handling non-customers to prevent fraudsters from exploiting relief payments.
• Regular polling for Auto Collections Roundtable members, including real-time information on pauses in pre- and post-chargeoff involuntary vehicle repossessions, extensions, loan modifications, and changes in dialing activity and collections attempts.
• Discussions and benchmarking with Card Chargeback focused on managing an unprecedented increase in T&E billing disputes. Auriemma Roundtables mobilized its members to share the latest available data on sales, disputes, chargebacks, and write-offs volumes to produce an industry benchmark illustrating the unprecedented magnitude of increase in key metrics.
• Ongoing meetings, polling and surveys for Customer Service teams (including Auto, Card and Consumer Banking), focused on migrating agents into Work from Home, technological solutions, and short-term and long-term planning to eventually bring agents back to a physical location.
• Auriemma Roundtables’ development of a COVID-19 Impact Dashboard, tracking KPIs in key functions, including Customer Service, Collections, and Fraud. Metrics of importance include Average Handle Time, Average Speed to Answer, % of Calls resolved in the IVR, Accounts per Collector, Penetration Rate, Intensity %, Gross Fraud Claim Dollars, Net Fraud Losses and Fraud Policy & Strategy Declines.

Auriemma Roundtables is committed to creating solutions and working with our clients to overcome these challenges in the weeks and months ahead. For more information, contact Tom LaMagna, President of Auriemma Roundtables at tlamagna@roundtables.us