Experienced Consumer Collections Officer

Lendwise; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 36,000 - 48,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private Medical Insurance

25 days annual leave + Bank Holidays

Birthday off

Job summary

Lendwise, a London-based FCA-regulated lender, is seeking a Collections & Recoveries Specialist. The role covers end-to-end collections for a B2C loan portfolio, negotiating repayment plans and managing cases through to recovery, including legal or external actions as needed.

The successful candidate will handle early arrears to defaults, maintain meticulous records, and collaborate with internal teams to optimize outcomes for a growing fintech platform.

Qualifications

• 3–5 years direct Collections & Recoveries experience in B2C lending or similar.
• Strong telephone collections and negotiation experience.
• Experience managing your own portfolio with limited supervision.
• Good written English and ability to produce professional correspondence.
• Understanding of FCA expectations including Consumer Duty and fair customer treatment.

Responsibilities

• Manage a portfolio of B2C loan accounts across early arrears, late arrears and default.
• Proactively contact customers by telephone and email to understand non-payment and agree next steps.
• Negotiate realistic and sustainable repayment arrangements while focusing on recovery.
• Review income, expenditure and supporting financial information when required.
• Identify customers in financial difficulty and assess appropriate forbearance options.
• Challenge customers when necessary and escalate where appropriate.
• Maintain clear follow-up strategies and ensure active progression of accounts.
• Take ownership from initial arrears through to resolution, repayment, recovery or escalation.

Skills

Collections expertise

Negotiation

Portfolio management

Attention to detail

Excellent communication

Excel

Tools

Excel

Job description

PLEASE READ THIS IN FULL BEFORE APPLYING

Location: London EC4 (hybrid: 4 days in office; 1 day WFH); Role Type: Full-time, Permanent;

Salary & related info:

• Health: Private Medical Insurance
• 25 days annual leave + Bank Holidays + Birthday off

About Lendwise

Lendwise is a London-based, FCA-regulated peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform specializing in Education Finance. We are a Fintech business with a mission-driven team dedicated to funding the ambitions of individuals pursuing professional qualifications and postgraduate education.

The Role

We are looking for an experienced consumer loans Collections & Recoveries Specialist to join our team. You will have 3+ years of hands‑on experience within B2C lending (consumer credit / consumer collections & recoveries) with an understanding of the full collections lifecycle where you can confidently manage your own portfolio.

You should be comfortable dealing with everything from early arrears and customers experiencing financial difficulty through to long‑term arrears, defaults, repayment negotiations and accounts requiring legal or external recovery action.

The Person We Want

• We are seeking a hardworking and dynamic individual to join our team, who is experienced, confident and commercially minded.
• Someone who is comfortable picking up the phone and having a difficult conversation (where needed).
• Someone who knows when to negotiate, when to challenge, when a customer genuinely needs support and when an account needs to be escalated.
• You should be organised, persistent and be accountable for the performance of accounts that you are responsible for.
• Most importantly, we want someone who is hungry and ambitious and wants to make an impact in a continuously growing business.

If you have experience working in B2C collections and recoveries, know your way around an arrears portfolio and do not need constant direction to know what the next step on an account should be, we want to hear from you.

Key Responsibilities

Collections & Arrears Management

• Manage a portfolio of B2C loan accounts across early arrears, late arrears and default.
• Proactively contact customers by telephone and email to understand the reason for non-payment and agree appropriate next steps.
• Negotiate realistic and sustainable repayment arrangements while maintaining a strong focus on recovery.
• Review customer income, expenditure and supporting financial information where required.
• Identify customers experiencing financial difficulty and assess appropriate forbearance options.
• Challenge customers appropriately where affordability or circumstances require further investigation.
• Maintain clear follow-up strategies and ensure accounts are actively progressed rather than allowed to remain unresolved.
• Take ownership of cases from initial arrears through to resolution, repayment, recovery or escalation.

Recoveries & Legal Escalation

• Identify when normal collections activity has been exhausted and an account should progress to formal recovery action.
• Prepare accounts for referral to solicitors, debt collection agencies, tracing agents or other external recovery partners.
• Liaise with external solicitors and recovery providers and actively manage cases once referred.
• Review repayment proposals, settlement offers and information received during the legal recovery process.
• Understand the practical stages involved in debt recovery, including pre-action activity, court proceedings, judgments and enforcement.
• Maintain accurate records of legal and recovery activity, costs, payments and next actions.
• Assist with domestic and international recovery cases where required.

Customer Financial Difficulty & Forbearance

• Hold detailed conversations with customers experiencing financial difficulty and properly establish their circumstances.
• Assess whether short-term or longer-term support is appropriate based on the information available.
• Recognise indicators of vulnerability and ensure cases are handled appropriately.
• Apply sound judgement rather than relying solely on scripted processes.
• Ensure decisions and customer communications are properly documented and can be supported if subsequently reviewed.
• Maintain accurate and detailed account notes, payment arrangements and recovery strategies.
• Monitor promised payments and arrangements and take action where these are broken.
• Identify trends, recurring issues and areas where collection performance or processes can be improved.
• Provide clear updates on arrears, defaults, recoveries and higher-risk accounts.
• Work closely with Operations, Underwriting, Finance, Compliance and other internal teams where required.
• Contribute ideas to improve collections strategies, processes and customer outcomes.

What We Are Looking For

• Around 3-5 years of direct Collections and Recoveries experience, preferably within consumer lending, personal loans, consumer finance, banking, Fintech or another B2C credit environment.
• Strong understanding of the consumer credit collections lifecycle, from initial arrears through to default and recovery.
• Strong telephone collections and negotiation experience.
• Experience managing your own portfolio or caseload with limited supervision.
• Confidence dealing with difficult, challenging or disengaged customers.
• Experience assessing financial difficulty and negotiating repayment arrangements.
• Understanding of affordability, income and expenditure assessments and appropriate forbearance.
• Good understanding of FCA expectations when dealing with customers in arrears or financial difficulty, including Consumer Duty and the principles of fair customer treatment.
• Strong written English with the ability to produce clear and professional customer and third-party correspondence.
• Excellent attention to detail and record keeping.
• Comfortable working with numbers, account balances, payment histories and Excel.

Highly Desirable

• Experience within unsecured consumer lending or personal loans.
• Experience handling defaulted accounts and legal recoveries.
• Knowledge of the UK court and debt recovery process, including County Court claims, CCJs and enforcement.
• Experience instructing or working with solicitors, tracing agents, debt collection agencies or enforcement providers.
• Credit control experience alongside consumer collections experience.
• Experience dealing with vulnerable customers and more complex financial difficulty cases.
• Experience within an FCA-regulated financial services business.
• Exposure to international debt recovery.

All applications will be treated with strict confidentiality