How to Properly Leverage Data & Technology Across The Entire Credit Lifecycle with Gary Byrne

Rich Alterman  00:04

You're syncing up and tuning in to The Lending Link Podcast, powered by GDS Link. Where the modern day lender can dive deeper into the future of data, decisioning and credit risk solutions.

Rich Alterman  00:21

Welcome to the show everyone. I'm your host Rich Alterman, and today we're syncing up with GDS Link's Gary Byrne, who leads our UK business team. On this episode, Gary and I are discussing a wide range of topics from the value of technology within financial services, including the current state of UK's economic climate, what a successful tech partner looks like, and so much more. But first, please head over to GDS Link's LinkedIn and Twitter pages @GDSLink and hit those like and follow buttons and be sure to subscribe to The Lending Link on Apple's podcast, Spotify or wherever you prefer to listen to your podcasts. As I shared I am being joined today by my colleague Gary Byrne. Gary joined GDS in June of this year with over 25 years of experience within the credit risk decision management sector with a focus on sales and consulting related to decisioning technology and its use across the full credit lifecycle of a customer, including marketing, originations, account management and collection. Gary's experience includes working for TransUnion and Fair,Isaac and several other companies who support this industry. All right, now let's get synced with GDS Link.

Rich Alterman  01:31

Good morning, Gary and welcome.

Gary Byrne  01:33

Hey, thanks, Rich. Great pleasure to speak with you.

Rich Alterman  01:35

Yeah. Thanks for joining me today. Where am I talking to you?

Gary Byrne  01:38

Sure. Yeah. I'm in God's own country in Yorkshire, in the heart of England, just coming into what should be the early stages of winter, but it's still mild enough here that I look for my office window and see grown men walking around in short sleeved shirts and trousers and so yeah, the weather is a little bit crazy right now.

Rich Alterman  01:57

Yeah, we're having a strange weather here in the States as well. I think it's supposed to be a 80 degrees for us here in Atlanta, Georgia, where I'm based. So Gary, before we kind of dive into the business, I always like to start with one personal question. I understand you're an avid bicyclist and have completed a few triathlons. How long have you been doing this? And can you share what type of training regiment you follow to get ready for a triathlon? And how do you feel that maybe you apply some of the same disciplines into your work life?

Gary Byrne  02:26

Oh, wow. That's a great question. And that I should start by apologising to any of anybody that I would call true triathletes listening to this to paint myself as a triathlete it brings a degree of artistic licence. So I do enjoy it. I think the training is pretty varied. I'm a frustrated soccer-football player at heart. I had to retrain myself to get on a bike and I'm not really built for that game. But I really enjoy it the the training is varied and mixed up. And with that, when you carry in injuries at my age of life, you can mix it up nice going for a swim or run or jumping on the bike. So yeah, I'd highly recommend anybody that's into their sports and activities to give it a shot. It's really great training, great atmosphere, but the events and the races, the triathlon have really nailed it and been able to attract lots of different age groups and disciplines and distances to the event. So it's yes, it's great to be part of it. I don't do a great deal of triathlons. I've done one this year. I did it. I might have another one booked in, one or two early next year. But yeah, again, a little bit of artistic licence calling me a triathlete, I think.

Rich Alterman  03:30

Okay, how do you maybe apply some of those disciplines, that you have, being a quasi triathlete into your work life?

Gary Byrne  03:38

Yeah, it's interesting. So I think it lends itself a little bit right with a bit of a reach. I think, when you come into the technology business and what we do, I think we've got a, you know, our place is that we have one really highly flexible, scalable, powerful solution that can do a myriad of things and fix a myriad of problems for customers and, and you've got to kind of be pretty flexible in your approach and be able to move left and right pretty dynamic to really offer best value and help to clients. Well I guess if we likened it to the triathlon world, it's it's pretty similar, right? When you get to my age, and the injuries that you carry and the weather here in the UK flexes up and down, so you've always got to be reasonably flexible in how you approach your training and how the timing of training as well when you can fit that in around your work life balance around you, your heavy work commitments, etc. So a little bit of a reach Rich, but I think there's some things we can grasp.

Rich Alterman  04:27

Okay, well, let's get down to business. You're certainly somebody with a long tenure in the credit industry, over 25 years, when you think about changes that you've seen one of our last podcast with Kevin Moss, he and I jointly have about 80 years in the industry, but you know, certainly 25 years is a long time. You know, when you think about some of the changes that you've seen that really stand out in your mind, maybe kind of share with the audience some thoughts that come to your head.

Gary Byrne  04:54

Great question and what the audience don't have the benefit of seeing Rich, is I can see you over the camera and I can vouch for your part in those eight years of experience.

Gary Byrne  05:07

Yeah, the changes are really interesting, I think principally, and fundamentally, in some angles, there's been a great deal of change, you know, the way that Financial Services are certainly, and the Financial Services customer, a client of ours, in the industry that has been around for probably five, seven years plus - kind of approaches risk and credit risk and lifecycle decisioning and pretty much the same as we did 20 years ago, right, the technology's changed. And when I started predominantly kind of started to learn my training as a bank office director in the UK, which was the first telephone bank in the UK, before then it was all branch - walking into branch and traditional banking and First Direct came along and really changed the mindset a lot there. And we see that kind of change in dynamics, which are changing of operations and principles, it's pretty much the new normal now, that with digitalisation, but back then it was quite a big deal. But even then the principles of what we were focused on, so customer first, putting the customer at the heart of the decisioning, and then kind of customer level decision and customer level account and customer management and collections was was really important. And those principles remain today. But the, I guess the major changes for me, as we look through that there was talk for a long, long time about the oncoming onslaught of big data, it was pretty much bureau driven. And that was, you know, it's either internal, or just bureau data. And we had to dig trenches and lay cables to get access to that data. And now we're living in that, right, we just seem to have dropped into that and not talked about it too much. But we live in big data. Now, it's not so much, it's very easy to get access to it, it's not so much that you've got to, you know, look around and try and find the data that might be valuable to you, it's actually - there's a lot of data that's valuable, the skill is identifying it, which stuff is most valuable. And you can make value out of it in a millisecond in this time, that you're able to make that decision.

Gary Byrne  06:52

So the speed and expectations of the market has changed. And that's driven some really, really cool enhancements and cool expectations and forcing the financial services industry to go along with it. I think predominantly speed, the fact that we're living in big data, and the expectations of Gen Z coming through are having some real positive impacts on where we're going.

Rich Alterman  07:13

Well, thanks for that. I know we'll be talking more about data later on.

Rich Alterman  07:18

On the news yesterday, the Bank of England warned the UK is facing the longest recession since records began. Just raise interest rates again, as we did here in the US, but the most in the last 33 years. And the Bank of England warned right that the UK is facing, and I quote, "very challenging times" a two year slump with unemployment nearly doubling by 2025 to as high as 6.5%. You know, with inflation hitting consumers, not only are you talking about the underserved and underbanked, inflation sitting across all credit classes today, I don't have the exact stats in front of me. But I know when I had the I think it was a podcast with either Kevin or Dan. And I encourage our listeners to go back and listen to those if they haven't. But even people in the US making over $100,000 a year are struggling with large number claiming to be living paycheck to paycheck. And I'm sure it's the same as in the US.

Rich Alterman  08:12

So kind of coming back to some of the points you were talking about. What are some of the steps that you feel lenders should be taking today to account for how inflation is impacting consumers ability to pay? And what role can data analytics and technology bring to the table for them to try to, as you say, continue lending, we don't want source of credit to totally dry up. But certainly there's gonna be a pullback, but you know, how do they do this in a smarter way? When things are really changing rapidly for these consumers. And it's gonna get worse.

Gary Byrne  08:44

I mean, it really is right. You know, working in risk as I have for a while, Richard, you have, you know, one thing that you would generally love to do is look at the past to try and identify where things are gonna go in the future. That's generally not a bad way of kind of predicting how these things are going to play out. The future here in the UK, and I think globally as well, is one of volatility and uncertainty. And I think that volatility and uncertainty is the new future, right?

Gary Byrne  09:07

I can't see a situation beyond the next certainly beyond the next 18 months, two years, probably three to five years in the UK, where it's just going to be going to be really volatile, it's going to be really uncertain right across the board. And part of that is the speed of the global market. And how something can happen as an example like the war that's happening in Europe and the almost immediate impact that has not just on the UK economy, but on individuals in the UK with things like the cost of living crisis and the cost of utilities and that kind of cost of utilities hit the UK well before it needed to hit the UK really just because the communications and the markets reacted so quickly to what was happening there.

Gary Byrne  09:42

So I think what needs to happen is, I think, the speed of decision needs to... The speed of decision has always been prominent, but the type of data that you're using to make that decision needs to be relevant and needs to be on point and and we're getting very close to near real time decisions, but looking at the type of data that you're using to make those decisions. And I think that traditional risk data that's provided by the three bureaus in the UK is obviously very powerful for a lot of cases. But when you're looking at making decisions based on such volatility, I think we need to be moving more to transactional based data and things like open banking data.  And open banking, I would say, probably like it is here as the rest of the world, I think it's got huge potential to really transform financial services and banking. I don't think it's hit anywhere near its potential yet. I think it needs to be adopted quicker across across the lifecycle, and that the potential for bringing that in and bringing bring in transactional data and then being able to rapidly analyse that today Gary's in good shape. But tomorrow, he's he's not and that far outweighs the traditional methods of scoring month to month and waiting for events to hit the account. And that's backed up by data that we're seeing coming out on the in the UK credit card market where we're seeing over the last six to nine months, the you know, one payment delinquencies actually goes up by 3%, then it goes down by 1%. And it goes up by 2%, and down by 3%. And it looks a little bit unstable.

Gary Byrne  09:43

Unstable is stable, if that makes sense. Yeah, it's not necessarily climbing badly. But it's not just kind of sitting at recognised points. But then, if you look at two to three months delinquent, those numbers are kind of gradually, and if not rapidly, going through the roof. The skill to this is bringing the stats around that and bringing the decision around that and when to react in quicker. And that's going to be led by transaction data. And that's really, really difficult for for a lot of providers in the UK to get hold of today. And to make value out of quickly because the systems and platforms that we've got, just don't allow for the AI models required to be able to make the decisions rapidly enough, or even getting the data and to be able to operationalize it into their existing platforms, because they've built a significant amount of legacy. Right. And they're not easy decisions to sell for.

Rich Alterman  11:46

What you're talking about right is really the ability to implement an adaptive control type system, right that yeah, really can help better manage across a full credit lifecycle. You talked about that. Consumers that are kind of bouncing around and maybe that 30 and 60 day bucket, can you kind of give some thoughts on how lenders may really leverage technology as that customer does age out? What are some of your thoughts on how technology that not only can be used for originations, but can be effectively leveraged across that full credit lifecycle?

Gary Byrne  12:21

Just having a little smile to myself, as you rightly call this adaptive control. When I was at FICO, maybe 15, 16 years, we talked heavily, right, that was one of the buzzwords around adaptive control and how how technology could be leveraged to do exactly what we're talking about today, with with the introduction of cloud based banking, and what we can do with the technology in the platform.

Gary Byrne  12:42

We don't need to reinvent the wheel on what adaptive control means we just need to go back and implement it. And for me, that means doing just that - it's taking the technology that's available to you out there, which is pretty light touch. And you know, I say building into these platforms now is relatively simple through API's. But it's the design of that that's really important. And you get that design framework right up front, and you build this intelligence base orchestration layer and hang off the bottom of that reusable framework of micro services that can be used at any point across the lifecycle. And when you start drilling into that, you start to allow yourself to actually probably redefine what originations mean, and what account and customer management mean, and what collections mean and how you should design a solution that's fit for the lifecycle, rather than building an originations platform, then an account management platform and then a collections platform.

Gary Byrne  13:29

And it also enables you as well, to rapidly ingest and get value out of the latest and greatest data that's out there now. Now, when you bring that data in, of course, you've got to get value out of it and use it and that, you know, the technology needs to lend itself to AI and ML techniques. Again, things that have been talked about for some time, but I don't think used anywhere near to their full potential. But the scale of big data, the speed of decision that needs to be made, the weight of the data that's going to come down the pipe that needs to be shuffled and standardised and pushed through models to get value out of in a split second, you know, your traditional scoring methods aren't going to do that. So I think getting the best use out of the technology and really revisiting the design process around that is hugely important.

Rich Alterman  14:15

Exactly. And also, because you can use that same technology, right, that you use for originations, you know, from a return on investment for that lender, to be able to leverage that same platform across the full credit lifecycle help further justify bringing in technology like ours and others.

Rich Alterman  14:33

So, you know, we talked about, you know, I think, open banking and how open banking has really changed a lot of the landscape in lending. Certainly somebody here in the US pedal, you know, they talked about how they were able to approve probably about 35% more consumers by using open banking data. Are you seeing the same rate of adoption in the UK? Or would you say it's still more in maybe in the infancy compared to the US where I think it's been heavily, heavily adopted.

Gary Byrne  15:03

My view in what we're seeing on our side is it's massively under adopted, right. I think it's not been used, even those that have adopted it, I don't think they're using it anywhere near the full potential. I think there's still quite a lot of assessment going on how best to integrate that data into traditional scoring methods and in the lifecycle as well, of where and when to get best value out of it. I think there's a fundamental shift that needs to happen. And it's probably going to be driven by the massive economic shift that's happening in the UK now. Financial Services don't have the time to wait for credit data to refresh, they just don't have the time. And so you know, the open banking and transactional data experts and data sources that are out there now in the UK are ready to go when they need to be adopted, all the analysis has been done all the retros have been done. Technology's there to enable it, I think it's fair to say that for a lot of organisations that probably what's slowing down adoption is legacy. I think legacy is a killer, right. And I think anybody that's been in business here in the UK, for certainly five plus years is probably built a bunch of legacy that's no longer kind of fit for purpose. It makes it really difficult to entirely reshape your operation and think about things holistically on how better to serve your existing customer base or to keep or to prevent the, you know, the Black Swan from coming in and taking your business altogether. And it's real difficult to do that. But I think the adoption of it  has to increase. And if I think anybody that doesn't start looking at transaction data to really transform the customer experience and speed of speed of change is going to be left behind.

Rich Alterman  16:31

Yeah, you know, when we talk about the full credit lifecycle, one of the things that where I think there's a good opportunity for lenders with open banking, as well as not just the originations where it's been playing more heavily. But when we think about collections, and we think about settlement, right, so clearly, more and more as consumers are struggling, lenders are probably going to be looking at an increase in the number of consumers, they might be talking about settlement. And I think that's a perfect place where you can say to that consumer, yes, we're willing to discuss a settlement with you. But if you want to do that, we need you to permission yourself into your banking data. So we can look at that and get a more holistic view. And kind of once again, using analytics, you know, from a lender perspective is kind of about not leaving money on the table. Right, not offering a 70% settlement, maybe when you should only be offering 30% settlement.

Gary Byrne  17:19

Yeah. And I think collections is a real interesting play. I think it's a it's a rapidly changing environment. And I think what needs to happen in collections personally, is that that the definition of collections needs to be looked at, cradle to grave, really, I think there's a lot more can be done. But the best lenders in the UK do a lot more on the pre-delinquency, early collection side. And then when they start to introduce transactional data into that, effectively, they know well, before I do, whether I'm gonna hit financial difficulties or not, and what type of collections customer I'm likely to be. Am I one that that can pay but won't pay, or can pay and will pay or won't pay? But you know, how does this how are they going to how are they going to balance all this stuff out, and the quicker they get that view of that, the quicker they they make the call to the client, to the customer, the more likely they are to get the share of wallet, right and to get the payment plans in place. But if they do it in a way that's not going to collections, its account management, bring it forward with that transaction data, they've got to be in a better place.

Gary Byrne  18:11

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, traditionally, and it's still the same in the UK, I think the big data hitters are the three credit bureaus and a couple of them in particular do a real good job of kind of bringing innovative products to the market, really and trying to refresh what that relationship between financial services and banks and the credit bureau should look like. Right. So not just your standard bureau data, but different spins on affordability and propensity and collections and a bunch of other things. So the Bureaus are doing quite a good job of filling that market, and particularly in the fraud space as well. But I would say over the last, certainly over the last three to five years, the number of new data providers that are coming to the market, I think it has been driven driven in my mind by the introduction problably of Open Banking over the last you, over a longer timescale and seeing the influence that and the potential that that could have to the UK market is probably spun off a lot of much needed conversation around what data is really valuable when we're when we're making decisions about customers and and who can hold that data and how do we get access to that data? And access again, is is a huge point, right? So the technology today lends itself to access a bunch of data or any data really right rapidly through API's and the technology can if you build this reusable framework, you can build a single data hub access point and have a data hub partner that can access all this data on your behalf really and more and more this new data providers coming on board looking at the cracks and of what the traditional lenders are providing. So people like data on demand and a few others a lot of them in and out of Yorkshire as well, Rich. It's an exciting time.

Rich Alterman  18:11

Right. You mentioned data is king and a lot of our audience today is not as familiar with the UK market landscape as it relates to data bureaus. At GDS, through our Modelica platform and our Data Exchange, we've integrated with, I think it's almost over 100 3rd party data bureaus in the US. It's staggering. In fact, I know when we were doing a sales presentation and we show our opportunities the slide I think their eyes just kind of pop our of their head like oh my God, I didn't know all these data bureaus were out there. Is it similar in the UK? Have you seen explosive growth on the number of data bureaus bringing solutions around ID, income verification? Credit both on the prime and subprime?

Rich Alterman  20:25

If you were talking to a lender that may be pushing out an RFP for a new risk management platform. And you were helping them design and write up that RFP, you know, what are some of the key functional requirements, that you would be laying into that RFP, that our audience who maybe is thinking about replacing their existing legacy stack, or key things that they need to consider?

Gary Byrne  20:48

I think there's a couple of parts to this, I think the first thing is that clients don't replace their full legacy stack every every year, right? It's a major operation. And I think there's a lot that they can be doing around around the edges of it. And, and my answer is pretty much going to go two ways here, focusing on legacy. And what a lot of clients do is look at replacing the stack, they realise that they've got some legacy, it's not got the flexibility, the scalability, the reusability, but it's become too costly, it's on prem, they want to move to the cloud, whatever it may be, they want to remove that stack. Now removing that stack can take anything from - the decision to do that, they get the funding from that, the sponsorship internally to line up all the players that are needed to do that to go to RFP and then go through the projects can be, you know, anything from probably minimum 12 months out to three, four years worth of engagement. And the investment around that, as we know, is significant. In the interim, there's lots that they can be doing around that. And what a lot of clients do is build more legacy, they just continue to add on to the legacy. And that's makes it more and more difficult to replace, right. So I guess upfront whilst they're thinking about their RFPs and whilst they're thinking about the stack is don't build legacy around legacy, right? Always be future thinking as much as you can, even with the small changes that you make, and try and make them future proof, try and use the latest and greatest technologies that are out there to circumnavigate the legacy that you've got in place, because you'll get some significant benefits in that. And a lot of time those those work around benefits will pay for the project to replace the big iron that you that you're struggling with. I guess by way of the features functionality and what you should be looking at, it's about reusability for me. And it's about, it's the cliche of making sure that when you buy a solution today, it's as much possible it's it's future proof as possible. And that, you know, in a in an environment where it's real volatile, and everything's changing rapidly. I think we're on our third Prime Minister now in as many weeks so, you know, it's, it's not easy to be future proof. But if you build things internally, if you build things on premise on iron yourself, that the budget to get that budget and to secure that and you bring in the latest and greatest technology and you put it on your own technology stack, the operation that you've built around that to maintain it and to take it forward will be significant. And you'll be constantly adding to that to replace that and take it out, you're going to again be looking at that 12 to four year timescale. So use the use the services that are available out there, use cloud based services, whether your own or of vendors and go through a heavy period of design. Make sure that you don't rush to market, right, you need to slow down to get there a little bit quicker, I think and make sure that you go through a real design phase that allows you as much as possible to design an intelligent orchestration and architectural layer that that will address the fact that tomorrow may be different and new data may need to come in and AI models may change. I think those are the key things from me, Rich. It's to use the technology that's available today, don't build more legacy. And as much as possible, think, you know, keep in your mind that things are going to change and change is the new normal, and you need to have a design framework in place that is not going to slow you down.

Rich Alterman  23:51

Great. Well, Gary, I think this has been a very informative conversation. I hope our audience picks up some key talking points from us. So just a couple maybe more personal questions. Before we wrap up. Let me ask you, if you were if you're meeting with a rising University senior who was thinking about upcoming career choices, you know, what would you tell tell them about the financial services industry and why you think it would be a good career choice for them?

Gary Byrne  24:18

Wow. I think when you work in what we do, Rich, and you're at a dinner party, and then you go around the table, and you know, you sat next to the brain surgeon and the engineer and and the the butcher and whatever else, right? It's...traditionally, it's not been a particularly exciting place. Right? And you know, who knows, you may get the odd drink thrown at you if you're in the middle of a banking crisis, but I don't think there's a more exciting time to be involved in what we do. I think the changing face of financial services, it's it's front of mind for everything in particular. I'm sure it is globally, but particularly here in the UK, right? It's the headline, it's headline news, around cost of living crisis and economics and politics around that and I think the influence that we can have on helping financial services organisations come to market and come to come to help people and shape the market. That's that's, in my mind is fairer for society. And fairer for the Financial Services outlook is has never been better. If your play is, is that excitement, or it is the you want to be on the bleeding edge of technology, or solution framework and integration and design or even people I think, I think working in our space is a really, at last, it's a really exciting place to be. And I don't mind I kinda look forward to when the, you know, the I get my nod at the dinner table, and I get to tell people what to do.

Rich Alterman  25:38

Hey, well, last thing, you mentioned helping people. So I'm gonna kind of give you a little plug here. I was looking at your LinkedIn profile and see that you're on the board of trustees for the Pontefract Food Bank in West Yorkshire. Can you share a little bit about what their mission is? And you know why you decided to get involved?

Gary Byrne  25:55

Thanks, Rich. Yeah, without getting overly political food banks in, in the UK - it's a shameful situation, right. One of the most wealthy Western European countries, and we've got thousands of food banks here in the UK. And what we're seeing and what we've been warned off by our trust group, the Trussell Trust is to prepare ourselves for a tsunami of poverty. And that's just a shameful situation to be in, in  in a country like the UK. What the food bank, our mission statement at the food bank is that we shouldn't need food banks, right? We're not in the market of, of growing a food bank empire, but it's just about you know, and what we're seeing it kind of lends right back to the beginning of the conversation where we're seeing more and more people really going to be impacted by the global economics of the next couple of years and you know, that's not your, that's not the people, that's not the homeless people, that's not people that you may pigeonhole as might be needing this - that could be on neighbour, that could be you, right. And people on a very good salaries that suddenly find themselves are not able to, to feed themselves or their families. And it's a great thing to be part of, it's really fulfilling, I urge anybody to get involved in their local communities. And I honestly don't do a great deal. You know, there's a lot of outstanding volunteers do the grunt of the work, but it's, it's unfortunately a much needed part of society in the UK today.

Rich Alterman  27:12

Thanks for sharing and thanks for investing your time in that. So this is a rich Ultraman wrapping up today we've been talking to Gary Byrne, who heads up the UK business team for GDS Link. Once again, both Gary and I hope you enjoyed our podcast this afternoon, and that you walk away with a couple of points that you could bring back to your day to day jobs. And we look forward to having you join us for other podcasts. Thank you and make it a great day.