Yolt, Europe’s leading open banking provider, has announced a strategic partnership with The Digital Debt Resolution Agency (The Digital DRA) to harness open banking payment and data services to improve debt resolution in the UK. Yolt’s Account Information Service (AIS) and Payment Initiation Service (PIS) provided to The Digital DRA, will go live in January 2022 and will simplify and streamline the way in which customers fill out Income & Expenditure (I&E) forms and manage their online payments.

The partnership has been built upon a mutual objective to use open banking to support people whose personal circumstances have changed and who need to put in place an affordable repayment plan. Transactional data provided through AIS is a real time measure of affordability, which enables The Digital DRA to set up tailored payment plans for customers, helping them resolve their account quickly and efficiently in a stress-free way.

In terms of speed, with the AIS function, The Digital DRA can pull the transactional information automatically, to pre-populate the I&E form for a customer. Currently, the online process to complete the forms can be time-consuming – it takes many clicks and there is a risk it is inaccurate as customers can be known to guess, generalise or, in some circumstances, manipulate the entries.

The Digital DRA is also applying Yolt’s PIS to improve the customer journey when it comes to payments in full. Customers paying via PIS require fewer clicks than required when inputting debit card details, which significantly improves the payment journey and prevents customers dropping off when they come to pay. Payment authentication is also made easy and secure with AIS/PIS as customers use the same process as they do when they bank online.

Nicolas Weng Kan, Chief Executive Officer at Yolt, said: 

“We are thrilled to be working with The Digital DRA as their open banking partner of choice. Debt resolution is something we are incredibly passionate about, and will become increasingly important, particularly as we manage the fallout from the pandemic and rising inflation. Open banking will enable The Digital DRA to transform debt resolution by removing the risk of inaccuracy and the burden of data gathering, so the company can focus on supporting customers with affordable plans to improve their financial capability.“Working with companies such as The Digital DRA is enabling open banking to overhaul another area of financial services which is rather archaic, both in terms of the process and the customer experience.”

Commenting on the partnership, Arren Khan, Managing Director of The Digital DRA, said:

 “As a Digital Debt Resolution Agency, we have to use the best technology available to complement our brand. The open banking solutions from Yolt help not only streamline the customer journey, but they also actively help to set up better, more affordable and manageable plans for our customers based on their actuals not assumptions. This is key as the people coming to us, in most cases are in financial hardship and we do not want to push them into any further financial detriment.”