Explore every episode of the podcast Arum AI Insights

In this episode, we examine the Financial Conduct Authority’s upcoming Product Sales Data (PSD) regulation, which will take effect in Q3 2025. PSD represents a major shift in regulatory expectations, requiring firms with more than £20 million in outstanding balances or new advances to submit comprehensive, near real-time data on product performance. This change aligns with a global movement towards more data-driven supervision, where regulators demand faster, more accurate insights to protect consumers.

Firms that do not prepare adequately face significant risks, including operational disruption from inadequate systems, regulatory penalties for poor-quality or late submissions, and the strain of relying on fragmented legacy technology. Quick fixes and manual reporting are no longer sufficient and often lead to higher costs and compliance gaps. Proactive investment in modern infrastructure is essential to avoid these pitfalls.

Arum encourages firms to view PSD as an opportunity to strengthen data capabilities, improve controls, and enhance decision-making. Modern cloud platforms, automated reporting tools, and AI-powered data quality processes can turn compliance into a strategic advantage. Using our Regulatory Readiness Framework, we help organisations benchmark their current state, design a tailored roadmap, and implement solutions that deliver lasting value well beyond the 2025 deadline.

In this episode, we explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) are transforming the way organisations deliver collections and recoveries system implementations, upgrades, and migrations. AI is now helping accelerate delivery, reduce risk, and improve quality across industries including financial services, utilities, telecoms, and government.

We share how AI is being used to speed up requirements gathering by processing legacy documents and generating draft outputs, improve design accuracy by validating rules and identifying inconsistencies early, and enhance testing through automated script generation and data reconciliation. Throughout, we highlight our “mask-share-generate-restore” framework, a secure, responsible approach that ensures client data is never exposed.

We also discuss the importance of strong governance, the benefits of private and controlled AI environments, and how expert review is essential to safe adoption. Looking ahead, we touch on future applications such as AI-supported change control, training content creation, and outcome monitoring. Whether you’re planning a system change or looking to enhance delivery processes, this episode offers practical, real-world insights on applying AI effectively.

In this episode, we explore how organisations can strengthen governance and oversight to improve outcomes for all consumers, especially those in vulnerable circumstances. Reflecting on findings from the FCA’s recent review of consumer vulnerability, we highlight the challenges many firms face and why addressing them is so critical.

We share six key areas where we’ve helped organisations build stronger frameworks: keeping policies up to date and accessible, delivering continuous and practical training for agents, embedding robust quality assurance processes, tracking meaningful performance metrics, establishing clear oversight and escalation routes, and reinforcing risk and control frameworks. Throughout the episode, we draw on real-world examples and experiences to show how even small changes can make a significant difference.

We also discuss the importance of segmenting data by vulnerability type, age, income, and geography to uncover trends and tailor strategies. By integrating these insights into everyday decision-making and governance at every level, organisations can deliver more consistent, fair, and sustainable outcomes. This episode offers a practical look at how we support firms in building governance structures that are not only compliant but truly customer focused.

In this episode, we speak to one of our Arum Approved vendors – Flexys, a UK-based provider of cloud-native collections technology. Their mission is to help creditors collect more, faster, focusing on four core pillars: improving outcomes for customers, reducing cost to collect, ensuring compliance, and enabling smarter business decisions.

The Arum Approved System is the only accreditation for collections and recoveries vendors globally. This certification shows that your product meets collections requirements for functionality and technology. It also demonstrates that your implementation approach will likely meet clients' needs.

Over the last 25 years, Arum has run hundreds of product demos, vendor negotiations, and system implementations. We use this expertise to assess products against market requirements and our standards, providing valuable feedback on product features.

In today's rapidly evolving financial landscape, it's imperative that your debt collection software is not only efficient, but also adaptable and prepared for future challenges.

However, what do you do when you're reliant on an outdated or unsupported system like Experian Tallyman, CGI CACS or older versions of C&R Software's Debt Manager (formerly FICO)? When vendor support ceases, how do you maintain your system, keep pace with necessary changes, support your customers, and remain compliant?

Ignoring outdated systems can significantly impact operational efficiency, the ability to utilise new technologies, regulatory compliance improvements, and costs.

In this episode, we delve into the inherent risks you’re facing with your unsupported system, outline what you can do to mitigate those risks, and look at your modernisation options.

When procuring a new debt collection platform, the demonstration days are pivotal events that can shape the direction of your decision-making process. By the time you reach this stage, you’ll already have invested significant time and effort in your collections system selection process, and you’ll likely have narrowed down your options to 3 to 5 vendors.

Don’t take your foot of the accelerator now though! This is a critical point in your procurement journey – and one that you can’t afford to rush or skip past.

Too often, organisations underestimate the importance of these demo days, treating them as a ‘show and tell’ rather than a robust, structured evaluation exercise. Skimming over this stage or allowing vendors to dictate the agenda could lead to costly mistakes, misaligned expectations, and ultimately, selecting a system that fails to deliver the business outcomes you need.

In this episode, we take you through 8 ways you can ensure your demo days are as impactful as possible and ultimately help you achieve a successful system selection.

When evaluating technology strategies for collections and recoveries systems, organisations often find themselves at a crossroads: should they upgrade their incumbent collections system or implement a new one altogether?

While the instinct to stick with a familiar vendor is understandable, it may not always be the best debt collection software for you. In fact, implementing a new platform can, in many cases, be as simple (or even simpler!) than a collections system upgrade, and it could offer significant benefits.

In this episode, we take you through what you should bear in mind when making this important decision.

In today’s economic and regulatory environment, transforming collections capability is high on organisations' strategic imperatives. It can no longer be the poor relation to acquisition or customer servicing.

With consumer and regulatory expectations being more intense than ever, the question of whether to build a custom system in-house or buy an off-the-shelf platform is central to any organisation looking to optimise collections, reduce unit costs, and maintain a strong brand reputation by delivering positive customer outcomes and minimising detriment.

In this episode, we dive into the pros and cons of each approach. By the end, you’ll have a clearer roadmap for deciding which path is best for your organisation’s needs, compliance requirements and long-term goals.

In this special end of season episode, Steve has a cross industry discussion with three podcasters – a financial wellbeing mentor, a CEO in the third sector and the founder of a debt technology firm.

They discuss the themes that have emerged from their respective podcasts, what that says about the state of the nation, some practical steps that we can all take to make improvements, and their predictions for the year ahead.

In our upcoming end of season finale, Steve Coppard meets with three money and debt experts who also have their own podcasts.

In this snippet, they share their predictions for the debt industry's upcoming challenges and opportunities for 2024!

Steve Coppard meets with Katherine Francis-Browne, the Income Delivery Lead at NHS England. As the NHS is free at the point of use, debt is not the first thing that comes to mind, however any organisation dealing with any financial transactions has the capacity to create debt.

Their conversation highlights the improvements the NHS is making to responsibly collect debt, identifying vulnerabilities and the need for better technology and data.

In this episode, Steve Coppard speaks to Deven Ghelani from Policy in Practice, a social policy, software and analytics company supporting businesses and local authorities to better analyse the impact of policy and those affected. Their recently published research found there is £19bn worth of unclaimed benefits every year in the UK.

Steve and Deven discuss how Policy in Practice is trying to move the needle on the issue, why the issue exists and why those working in the financial services and collections and recoveries industries should care.

For our latest episode, Steve visits Lex Jones and Chris Dick at the Registry Trust. The Registry Trust was established to maintain the official statutory, register of judgements, orders and fines for England and Wales on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, and it maintains similar registers for Scotland. Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man, and Jersey by agreement with the relevant authorities there.

Through campaigning by the Registry Trust, Steve became aware of an issue relating to a lack of claimant data for England and Wales - the name of the person or organisation that files the county court judgement (CCJ) against the indebted person or business. Currently their name does not have to appear on the CCJ, so the database is incomplete, leading to difficulty in paying down CCJs, added stress, and a high volume of unnecessary calls to both the courts and the Registry Trust.

That campaign led to a commitment by the Ministry of Justice to run a public consultation on this matter, which in government terms is the first step to making a change - so a huge win for the Registry Trust!

For this episode, Steve speaks with Mark Francis from DebtManagers in New Zealand. Mark is one of the leading voices in the debt conversation in New Zealand, pressing for better treatment of those in debt, and an industry code of practice amongst other things.

Steve took the opportunity to ask Mark what it is about the industry that keeps him awake at night and he spoke about the four issues that he's concerned about – the lack of a code of practice, the language used around debt, encouraging people to access free debt advice through Money Mentors, and personal responsibility regarding debt.

In this episode Steve meets with Jamie Waller, founder of JBW Group and the Enterprise Network at the Prince's Trust. Jamie’s the author of Unsexy Business and at a time of recording, he was in the midst of writing his new book, The Dyslexic Entrepreneur.

They discussed the enforcement industry, past then present. Their conversation highlighted the importance of making sure that the industry hears the voice of the front line, the enforcement agents themselves, as well as challenges in the procurement process, and the potential impact of the Enforcement Conduct Board.

In our fourth episode, Steve meets with Muna Yassin MBE from Rooted Finance, a specialist money and debt advice charity.

Muna shares some interesting statistics and highlights the severity of the ethnicity premium. Their discussion raises the need for greater accuracy in data and further research into how ethnicity can affect the cost of necessities, such as insurance. Even more so as the last census showed that about 1 in 5 people in England and Wales are from a black, asian, mixed or other non-white backgrounds. Under the consumer duty, deepening our knowledge of diverse ethnic communities will be critical to achieving good customer outcomes.

Further to this, collaboration between specialist advice agencies, financial institutions, collections and recoveries and the regulators could lead to lower costs and better debt outcomes for all.

Steve Coppard meets with Andrew Hignett, credit control manager at Johnson Tiles, in the Potteries’ heartland of Stoke-on-Trent. Established in 1901, Johnson Tiles is the UK's only large-scale manufacturer of ceramic tiles.

They discuss the overlap and similarities in business and personal debt, both involve people, their behaviours, attitudes, and biases. As business debt is managed by people it is possible to handle both similarly as people can choose to manage their business finances just as they manage their personal finances.

The conversation also raises questions such as – What can be done to help people manage better personally and professionally? How can we educate people about money and debt? Should payment terms be standardised further? How can businesses use Know Your Customer to help deal with their debtors?

In this episode, Steve meets with Cath Wohlers from the Illegal Money Lending Team to talk about the nation’s efforts to Stop Loan Sharks.

Coincidently in the week just before Mantas Daujotas is sentenced to four and a half years in prison for having illegally lent about £2m, making a profit of £450k.

This is a complex topic that lives in the grey area of where we draw the line on sub-prime lending. On the one hand, Jason Wassell, Chief Exec of the Consumer Credit Trade Association argues that shrinking the market leads to financial exclusion, while Mick McAteer of the Financial Inclusion Centre takes the view that improved regulation has protected people from unaffordable products.

Also around this time, Fair4All Finance publishes a report into loan sharks and is looking to convene cross-sector, cross-party support to create a credit market that supports everyone, presumably to fill the gap between Jason & Mick’s viewpoints. Free training is available from the Illegal Money lending team, just call 0300 555 22 22 and ask for Cath or go to stoploansharks.co.uk and use the live chat.

In our premiere episode, Steve Coppard speaks with Ben Perkins, Head of Partnerships at Plain Numbers to discuss the UK's numeracy levels and the role companies play in supporting and communicating with their customers.

Numeracy was identified by the FCA as one of the risk factors for consumers of financial services that should be addressed in attempts to recognise consumer vulnerability.

In fact, nearly half of the working-age population in the UK has the expected numeracy level of a primary school child. The FCA also found that 34% of adults in the UK have poor - to - low levels of numeracy involving financial concepts.

With Consumer Duty placing an onus on firms to communicate information as simply as possible – what can be done to ensure customers can understand financial concepts and communicate with numbers confidently?