Fintech Takes x C&R Software Presents: Fintech’s Next Test Across the U.S. and U.K.

Welcome to Season 2 of Collections Conversations, a new miniseries from Fintech Takes, sponsored by our friends at C&R Software.

The series digs into how generative AI is reshaping debt collections; what it enables, what it complicates, and why it might finally force the industry to retire the word “collections” altogether.

In Episode 1, I sit down with Luke Broadhurst, CEO of Credit Strategy, who has covered the U.K. banking and fintech scene (particularly from a credit perspective), for more than two decades. 

We explore how U.K. fintech companies treat customers once things go wrong, and what the U.S. can learn from it.

Fintech has spent years making onboarding easy. Luke says a missed payment is when a lender's customer centricity either comes through or doesn't. Asked whether AI belongs in decisions like these, Luke says undoubtedly, but a human has to own the consequences, even if a human doesn't press the button. 

Owning the consequences, he says, is what Consumer Duty teaches. I don't think U.S. fintech has internalized that lesson just yet.

We get into: 

Whether the next era of fintech is a story of scale or of customer centricity (which Luke calls an operating model decision, not a user experience decision)

How Consumer Duty went from a regulation U.K. lenders resisted to one the conversation at Credit Week now treats as a force for good

Why fintech companies that build the world's best brakes can drive at 500 miles/hour

Why smaller firms with less reputational risk are deploying AI while large institutions stay cautious for fear of getting it wrong

Luke's advice?  Stop thinking technology is the advantage, and put finance before tech.