Jaison Thomas

Midland Credit Management, Inc. (MCM) is a subsidiary of Encore Capital Group, which is a public company, traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange as ECPG. MCM is a market leader in portfolio purchasing and recovery in the United States. The company provides debt recovery solutions for consumers across a broad range of assets. MCM purchases portfolios of defaulted consumer receivables and manages them by partnering with its consumers as they repay their debt obligations, helping them on the pathway to economic freedom and ultimately improving their financial well-being. We operate with industry-leading consumer-centric practices anchored by a sound set of values, that includes interacting with integrity, compassion, and respect.

By purchasing Non-Performing Assets (NPAs), we return capital to banks, enabling further lending and thus, playing a key role in the consumer credit ecosystem.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been, and continues to be, a difficult period for people here in India and around the world. However, despite all the challenges we’ve faced, I’m incredibly proud of what our colleagues and the overall business has achieved.

In 2020, we grew our collections to a record level and that strong performance has continued into this year. We were able to do this because we had already made investments, pre-pandemic, in our technology infrastructure and compliance systems – and through a combination of protocols for those in office (like social distancing, face masks, temperature checks etc.) and work from home, we were able to seamlessly continue operations. We also innovated on the go to create flexible payment options for our consumers, which positively benefited them during these tough times. All of this helped us maintain strong operational performance through the pandemic, while keeping our people safe.

As I shared before, through a combination of protocols for those in office and work from home, we were able to seamlessly continue operations, which ensured the safety of our teams and consistency for our business. We also stepped up our philanthropic support for community health, which helped the state’s efforts to control the disease.

As the second,more-serious wave of COVID-19 began impacting India in March 2021, we took several additional steps to support our colleagues, their families, and our community. We opened our office in Gurugram to host a drive-in testing facility for employees and members of the local community. We also launched a COVID-19 Employee Assistance Center, which provides employees and their families with critical medicines, oxygen support and information to find resources, such as available intensive care hospital beds.

We were able to adapt most of our engagement, celebration, and recognition programs to a virtual format almost immediately. For example, our promotion dinner parties became Zoom theme parties, replete with employees sharing stories and celebrating each other. Our top talent recognition programs were digitally conducted with home delivery of goodie boxes. We instituted e-meeting guidelines aimed at reducing screen time fatigue, and digital coffee sessions intended to replicate the informal conversations that many of us missed. Continuous dialogue and active listening were maintained through townhalls, newsletters, employee connects and pulse surveys, to keep a track of the overall employeeexperience and to capture feelings within our teams.

Other steps we’ve taken include, providing our employees, and their families,access to online video consultations with doctors and webinars hosted by COVID-19 experts. We’ve enhanced our insurance offerings to cover medical expenses associated with home COVID-19 treatment and increased our wellness offerings – from providing coaching on empathetic conversations to organizing wellness and mindfulness workshops, for employees and their families. In addition to our 24/7 counseling helpline, we also brought on an organizational psychologist to provide one-on-one counseling sessions. We also introduced an employee donation initiative, where colleagues donated their personal leaves to a shared pool from which affected employees can extend their time on leave(also equally matched by the company).

India is a very different market compared to developed markets like the United States or United Kingdom. In India, there is a growing opportunity in the banking sector'snonperforming assets(NPAs),whichis being addressed by asset reconstruction companies (ARCs). We have leveraged our expertise in debt restructuring to venture into the ARC space. Encore Asset Reconstruction Company (EARC), which purchases and managessecured and unsecured non-performing loans (NPLs) in India, has brought Encore’s global credit management services expertise to the Indian NPL market, while establishing new standards for a consumer-centric recovery approach. The movement in asset quality of banks, and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), following the COVID-19 pandemic, could bring ARCs into greater focus and action, and we are hopeful of a better domestic regulatory and macro environment.

The digital age is transforming traditional consumer engagement models. At MCM, we are adopting an omni-channel engagement approach to support our consumer’s preferred way of working with us. We want our consumers to be able to engage with us when, where, and how they want. To that end, we have made significant progress in developing our digital collection strategies. Our consumers have complete flexibility of accessing their account information, viewing supporting documents, making payments through our website or even consult our chat support team for customized payment offers. Our call center Account Managers are encouraged to make consumers aware of our digital channel. We expect our digital collections share to increase, as we continue to develop our digital strategies and more consumers become aware of the digital channel.

Besides that, we have also invested in intelligent automation to strategically transform our operations, enhance process efficacy and productivity, while also fortifying our commitment to compliance and consumer experience. This has played an instrumental role in helping MCM close 2020 with more efficient operations, which eventually translated into significant overall savings.

We are about 2500 strong in India. Most ofour workforce is a part of theMCM’scollections operation. Our collections Account Managers are typically graduates, trained to service our US-based consumers. We also have a large non-phones operations team engaged in consumer support services and legal operation’s back office support work. We have several specialized enabling functions based in India such as IT, Analytics, Decision Science, Business Transformation, Finance and Accounting, Legal and Internal Audit, Human Resources and Training – all of which are providing services to MCM operations across US, India and Costa Rica.

Our talent programs focus on building multifaceted skills suited to the current role, and future needs, enhancing consumer experience, driving a value culture, and shapingfuture leaders. The platforms to impart these could vary from structured classroom trainings, self-paced digital learning platforms, exposure to industry forums/ conferences, and assisting employees to upgrade professional qualification.

For example, MCM Academy is a curriculum-led program targeted at developing leadership competencies of our mid to senior management employees, across effective communication approach, emotional intelligence, and coaching skills for managers.Our front-line Account Managersare coached through our ‘Open Communication Model’, to create dignified and engaging experiences for our consumers.

Our people managers are specifically sensitized on creating an inclusive culture through trainings andactivities based on our company Values: We Care; We Find a Better Way; and, We Are Inclusive and Collaborative.

At MCM, we believe that learning is a shared responsibility. Hence,we empower our employees to create individual development plans to build domain skills, or competencies, aided by our talent development programs.

Whether we’re responding to extraordinary moments like COVID-19 or executing our day-to-day business strategy, we always want to do the right thing for our consumers, colleagues, and communities. Our CSR journey, in India, began even before the CSR laws coming into force – and in the decade that followed, we have supported remedial education for over 4000 underprivileged children and livelihood skills for over 2000 disadvantaged women.

Recently, we have focused on formal schooling, environment, and COVID-19 relief. Currently, we support education for vulnerable children, in partnership with Rainbow Foundation India. Furthermore, over 40% of our employees are engaged in our CSR program – either through direct volunteering or monthly donations.

As an environment ally, we have been looking at developing green community spaces, such as our recent adoption of a public park next to our Gurugram office. Additionally, we are a paperless office with minimal usage of plastic.

We have also donated INR 50 lakhs to the Haryana Corona Relief Fund with a view to aid the state’s efforts to control the coronavirus pandemic; and provided hand sanitizers and face masks for the local law enforcement personnel, and sanitation supplies for underprivileged children. Next on our COVID-19 relief agenda is a plan to work with the state government to create sustainable community health infrastructure – be it an oxygen plant, concentrators, ventilators, or other critical medical consumables.

In the current pandemic situation, we are committed to building a strong and resilient community.