Director of Collections

Who are 118118 Money?

At 118 118 Money, we are dedicated to helping Britain achieve financial fitness. In 2023, we proudly relaunched the iconic 118 118 twins, reaffirming our commitment to improving the financial health of individuals across the nation. Our loans and credit cards are designed specifically for those often overlooked by mainstream lenders, empowering over 800,000 customers on their journey to better financial well-being.

Our vision is to champion financial fitness throughout Britain by offering accessible products, valuable resources, and unwavering support. We are on a mission to provide fair and transparent credit solutions that promote financial well-being for all.

With an impressive 4.8 Trustpilot rating, we take pride in being an approachable lender, ready to provide clear financial support. If you’re inspired by what you’ve read and want to make a real difference in people's lives, keep reading—your next opportunity to contribute to our mission could be just a few clicks away!

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced and strategic Director of Collections to lead and manage our collections analysis and strategy. The successful candidate will have significant experience in credit card collections, with strong analytical skills, particularly in SQL, to forecast risks, perform in-depth analysis, and assess portfolio performance throughout the product lifecycle.

What you'll do

You will proactively identify trends, work with other departments, such as Finance, Analytics, and Growth, to adjust strategies, and ensure the credit card portfolio remains healthy and profitable.

This role is a role which is subject to certification by us under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR).

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the development and implementation of portfolio strategies for our product ranges, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the product lifecycle and its impact on collections.
• Lead your team to perform detailed analysis of customer behaviour, product performance and payment patterns using SQL to identify trends and proactively mitigate delinquencies before they escalate.
• Work closely with the Finance team to provide early warning signals regarding portfolio performance, enabling adjustments to financial forecasts and budgets.
• Understand the broader business impact of portfolio decisions, recognising the interdependencies between portfolio performance and areas such as budgeting, growth strategies, and financial planning.
• Demonstrate expertise in segmenting and predicting customer behaviour, proactively identifying at-risk customers and implementing strategies to mitigate potential delinquencies.
• Analyse customers in arrears, segmenting them into quintiles to forecast recovery potential and optimise collections efforts.
• Develop and optimise a recoveries function, aiming to reduce debt sales by 50% and enhance recovery outcomes, with a focus on early engagement and streamlined processes.
• Work cross functionally to refine risk models and scorecards based on data-driven insights, ensuring accurate credit risk assessments.
• Partner with the Growth and Marketing teams to ensure promotions are targeted to the right customers based on behavioural insights and portfolio performance.
• Mentor and lead a team of specialists, ensuring a proactive and performance-driven culture within the credit card portfolio management team.
• Regularly assess portfolio health and performance, providing senior management with insights on emerging trends, risks, and actionable strategies for future performance.
• Ensure all portfolio management practices are compliant with regulatory requirements and internal policies, maintaining the highest ethical standards.

What you need:

• Significant experience in credit card collections and portfolio management, with a proven track record of optimising portfolio performance and managing risk.
• Strong analytical skills, with advanced proficiency in SQL for extracting, manipulating, and analysing large datasets to forecast and mitigate potential risks.
• Proven experience in segmenting and predicting customer behaviour within credit card portfolios, with an ability to implement strategies that mitigate risks and maximise recoveries.
• Experience in developing and refining a recoveries function, driving down debt sale volumes while improving recoveries.
• A clear understanding of the interdependencies within the business, particularly how portfolio decisions impact wider business areas like budgeting, resource allocation, and strategic growth.
• Experience working with cross-functional teams (Finance, Analytics, Growth) to adjust strategies, financial planning and marketing efforts based on credit card portfolio insights.
• In-depth understanding of the full credit card product lifecycle, including origination, repayments, collections and the factors that impact each stage.
• Proven ability to lead a team, manage performance, and drive results in a challenging and fast-paced environment.
• Experience in refining credit risk models, scorecards, and analytics to enhance portfolio performance and reduce risk.
• Familiarity with regulatory standards and best practices in credit card portfolio management and collections.
• A degree in Finance, Business Administration, or a related field; professional qualifications in financial services or credit risk management are essential.

Like what you heard? Great - apply now!

As a candidate, we know the interview process can be daunting and it’s important that you have a great experience with us. We will do all we can to make sure you are fully informed and excited by our story so we get to see the best from you. If you need any adjustments made to help you with the interview process, just let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate them.

Following your application, we will want to learn more about you, your motivations, experiences, and values. In turn, you get to learn about our business, our culture, the role and what we can offer you.

Equal Opportunity Employer

At 118 118 Money we are passionate about equality, diversity, and inclusion. We are committed to being representative of different cultures, background, lifestyles, and groups, where everyone has an equal chance to succeed. It is our policy to treat everyone fairly and to ensure no one is disadvantaged or receives less favourable treatment. We recognise that everyone has different needs and while we can’t accommodate every flexible working request we are more than happy to have a conversation about it.

How we handle your data

118 118 Money requires your personal data to process your application for a position within our Company. If your application is successful through to telephone screening/interview, and you are not selected for a role, we may store your personal data for 12 months to enable our HR team to contact you should future roles be advertised.

Where you apply, but are not selected for telephone screening/interview, we will delete your personal data once the position is filled.

118 118 Money does not use automated decisioning or profiling when selecting candidates. For your rights under GDPR please see our Privacy policy.

Please be aware that should we pursue your application, all our Financial Services employees will be expected to complete background checks to assess suitability for employment, these include; a criminal record, identity, sanctions, adverse finance, fraud prevention and reference checks to comply with our regulatory requirements.