For the 3rd time this year OnGuard New Zealand organised a Round Table Discussion Meeting. After two successful meetings at the Hilton Hotel in Auckland, Owen Goodwin from the NZCFI again lead the discussions between all the attendees.
Together with a large number of credit managers several subjects were discussed during this meeting. One of the main subjects was the recovery effort after the earthquake in Christchurch. It had a huge impact on the normal life there, but also on the businesses. The majority of the companies are all back to normal, but some just started again with their credit management activities on their Christchurch customers. For the utilities, such as power companies, they will start again with collecting after a period in which they have been very lenient. It is important that they focus on getting the old debt and new accounts under control. Slowly life in Christchurch is returning to normal, though some local commodity goods have increased in price.
When looking at deferred payment schemes, the attendees work on a case-by-case basis. For every debtor a different payment scheme could be necessary, but for them it is more important in getting the old debt paid first. When customers still have an outstanding debt, all purchases will be postponed till the customer pays their debt. With a focus on getting the old money first, they focus less on retaining customers. For the payment schemes they have three main categories of ledgers: main debtors, transit ledgers and bad debtors. The credit managers would prefer a separate view on accounts with or without payments schemes, but this is not always possible in most of the current credit management software.
Another discussion subject was how liquidators operate. Some of them use legislation to chase “wealthy” creditors for voidable transactions. These funds will be used then for pursuing other “wealthy” creditors for payments. A procedure which is allowed under legislation, but all of the attendees agree that it is morally wrong. Late payment interest is another hot topic, but after discussing this they can conclude that is not used all the time. It is used on a case-by-case base, but will not be used by finance companies often to repossess goods.
Overall the discussion meeting was well visited with 12 credit managers (4 credit professionals of the year and a runner up were present) from very large companies. A nice group of people were gathered together with passion and commitment to their work and professional credit management, which led to very lively discussions.
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