Credit Week 2025 highlights

Credit Week 2025 is behind us, but its impact on credit, collections, and fintech is still resonating.

In its second annual iteration, Credit Week brought together regulators, lenders, innovators, and strategists under one roof to chart the future of responsible lending. If you weren’t there, here’s just a small selection of what you missed:

Two hard-hitting keynotes started off day one, as former Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Vince Cable, returned to deliver a global economic briefing. Meanwhile, Nick Beal, CEO of Amigo Loans, shared a candid reflection on the pressures of evolving affordability regulation.

Another highlight was a panel looking at how the collections industry has fundamentally transformed from target-driven debt recovery to customer-centric engagement. Industry leaders from Capital on Tap, Funding Circle, and Liberis painted a picture of modern collections that would be unrecognisable to practitioners from just a decade ago.

"It’s no longer just about pounds collected or hitting daily targets on a whiteboard," explained Tony Cole, Head of Collections at Liberis. "We’ve moved toward a model that prioritises customer outcomes and emotional intelligence."

The session highlighted how collections agents now need emotional intelligence and omnichannel communication skills across phone, chat, SMS, and email. Despite AI integration, core listening and questioning skills remain unchanged, but the future depends on emotional resilience, adaptability, and embracing AI as a collaborative tool rather than a threat.

A thought-provoking panel chaired by Jason Wassell (CCTA) tackled one of the sector’s most contentious issues: whether commission disclosure rules are genuinely helping consumers or simply creating bureaucratic burden. The consensus was stark. Victoria Loosemore from Advantage Finance captured the frustration, "We’re giving customers more information than ever, but they don’t always understand what they’re looking at. You can’t just throw a document at someone and assume that’s transparency."

Industry experts from BNP Paribas, Admiral Financial Services, and Close Brothers shared strategies for rebuilding consumer confidence in car finance. A key insight was that the issue isn’t solely about trust, it’s about communication. With the UK’s average reading age around 11, as Seán Kemple from Close Brothers noted, clear and plain language is critical to ensure transparency throughout the customer journey. The panel also emphasised improved transparency tools including soft searches and pre-approval processes, while coordinating industry responses to claims management companies and regulatory pressures.

Future-Proofing Financial Services

Experian’s forward-looking session delivered one of the week’s most comprehensive strategic frameworks. Drawing from research across 660 financial institutions worldwide, Chris Wilson and David Gallihawk revealed five global priorities shaping the industry: Automating lending journeys, fixing fragmented data, improving customer experience, balancing innovation with compliance, and driving efficiency. Perhaps most striking was Wilson’s admission: "Some are still stuck in the spreadsheet era, which is frankly terrifying."

Looking ahead to 2030, three predictions emerged: AI will become ubiquitous across all financial processes, synthetic data usage will increase by 60%, and ecosystem thinking will dominate, blending internal and third-party services.

Climate Risk: From Models to Reality

Nationwide’s Robert Stevens provided a masterclass in practical climate risk management, sharing how the building society developed its approach over the past decade. A key takeaway was that models provide a starting point, but property-level validation is essential. With Flood Re set to expire in 2039, many homes being mortgaged today could become uninsurable within the life of the loan, a sobering reminder that lenders must balance customer protection with market accessibility.

Open Banking: Democratising Financial Access

The week’s sessions on Open Banking highlighted how this technology is revolutionising affordability and access by putting consumers in control of their data. The transformation enables personalised products based on actual spending patterns, enhanced competition through easier switching, and financial inclusion through alternative data sources for underserved populations.

The Credit Awards: A Night of Recognition

Day two’s evening shifted to inspiration with the 26th Annual Credit Awards, hosted by star impressionists Rory Bremner and Deborah Stephenson, honouring excellence across the industry. The event served not only as a celebration, but as a powerful networking forum, bringing together leaders from Experian, UK Finance, Barclays, Close Brothers Motor Finance, SAS, Lloyds Bank, Nationwide Building Society and more. Many described the event as a "reset" and an opportunity to connect beyond KPIs and reflect on the impact credit professionals make in people’s lives.

Across all sessions at Credit Week 2025, several key themes emerged:

Customer-Centricity: Every sector is shifting toward prioritising customer outcomes over traditional metrics. From collections to car finance, the message was clear that success depends on understanding and serving customer needs.

Technology Integration: AI and automation are reshaping operations while requiring human oversight. The most successful organisations are those that embrace technology as a collaborative tool rather than a replacement for human judgment.

Regulatory Balance: Finding the sweet spot between innovation and compliance remains challenging. The industry seeks regulatory frameworks that enable innovation while protecting consumers.

Data Quality: Better data integration and understanding are critical for future success. Whether it’s climate risk modelling or credit decisioning, the quality of data drives the quality of outcomes.

Transparency vs. Complexity: The ongoing challenge of making complex financial products understandable to consumers without overwhelming them with information.

Credit Week 2025 proved that innovation, compliance, and customer fairness aren’t mutually exclusive, they’re interdependent. 

If you weren’t there, you missed out on practical insights from industry leaders, a vision of technology-enabled customer service, honest conversations about the future of regulation, and countless new ideas, connections, and collaborations. As a Credit Strategy Premium member, you can catch up with Credit Week 2025 with recorded sessions On Demand and write-ups on the Knowledge Hub. If you’re interested in becoming a Premium Member, drop an email to membership@shardfinancialmedia.com

But don’t worry, Credit Week will also be back next year from June 23rd - 25th, and since 2026 promises to be even bigger and better than ever, make sure to mark it in your calendar.