人们常说，需求推动创新。
加拿大金融科技创企Symend联合创始人兼CEO Hanif Joshaghani对此深表认同。Joshaghani来自一个贫穷的移民家庭，此类人群（尤其是对信用影响缺乏了解的人士）是收债机构重点关注对象之一。
Symend的行业调查发现，目前借由收债机构的债务催收年成功率仅为7%。过去五年，美国不良贷款量由1500亿美元升至6000亿美元。Symend估计加拿大不良贷款数额为25亿美元。不良贷款中，40%为电信、公用事业及信用卡积欠。
而收债策略过时才是造成这一困境的一个重要原因。受垂直领域软件开发启示，Symend将工作流自动化与以消费者为核心的策略落实到了收债营销领域。该SaaS解决方案初始目标群体为公共事业服务商、电信及无担保信用卡提供机构，旨在降低收债成本，提高收债销量，从而使商家与消费者双赢。
2016年12月初，Symend获得了100万美元的种子轮融资，同期估值达到250万美元。Symend利用所获资金研发产品原型，其产品结合了自动化、预测分析、消费者出大及更佳的积极收债策略服务其试用用户。
Joshaghani称Symend系统允许用户公司选择并决定收债策略使用顺序及所期产品特征。
例如，使用Symend的企业可设置系统采用传统推广方案创制金融还款计划，或为一次性偿还设置折扣。此外，Symend平台还可以帮助提升用户公司的能力，使其能消除某些支付障碍。
Joshaghani认为，人们没有及时偿还贷款的一大原因在于许多消费者并不完全了解信用的影响。因此，Symend可以借此机会对其进行信用教育，介绍一些金融规划工具，帮助其树立信用意识，进而早日归还债务。
据了解，Symend早期试验已于今年夏天展开，以解决技术难点和客户痛点为主要目标。
Joshaghani表示：
"收款率不会是百分之百，永远不可能会。我真切地希望有一天欠款事件不再发生。但在此之前只能不断改进。我们的系统更为科学、高产且有效，为消费者与用户企业间创建了良性互动。但愿相比传统方式，Symend能够产生更好的效果。"
They say that necessity is the mother of invention.
"I came from a poor immigrant background," said Hanif Joshaghani, cofounder and CEO of Canadian FinTech startup Symend. "Some of the biggest targets for collection agents are those areas, especially people with a lack of knowledge of the impact of credit. It's something that I saw around me quite a bit when I was a kid, and it's something that I think can be addressed. There's a better way to do it."
That better way, Joshaghani told Karen Webster, is his new software platform - Symend. Targeted first to utility providers, telecoms and unsecured credit card suppliers, its Software-as-a-Service solution intends to make the debt collecting process less costly - and more effective _ so that businesses and consumers win.
"In the U.S., for a whole host of reasons, the amount of debt in delinquency has risen in leaps and bounds over the last decade or so," Joshaghani told Webster. "But at the same time, the success of collecting those debts has gone down."
Symend's industry research found that the current debt collection system using collection agencies sees an annual success rate of just 7 percent. Over the past five years in the U.S., Symend found that delinquent debt has risen from $150 billion to over $600 billion. The company estimated that number in Canada to be $2.5 billion. Some 40 percent of this delinquent debt is accrued to telecoms, utilities and credit card markets.
"The tactics used by collection agents are fairly antiquated," said Joshaghani. He noted that innovations in other software verticals inspired Symend's platform and included workflow automation and consumer-centric approaches to outreach in marketing, innovations in payment processing, as well as predictive analytics.
"These innovations successfully deployed in other software verticals can be used here," Joshaghani said. "Things have come a long way in a very short period of time, things that could be repurposed in [the debt collecting] space."
In early December, Symend closed a $1 million seed investment round, bringing Symend's launch valuation to $2.5 million, said Joshaghani. "We're happy with the results of the fundraising."
The startup is using the funds to build out its prototype, which uses a combination of automation, predictive analytics, customer outreach and better positive collection tactics to help its pilot customers.
Joshaghani said that Symend's system allows participating companies to choose and prioritize which collection tactics and product features they want to use.
"It's almost like they're building a campaign to target an individual customer, but instead of trying to generate a lead for sales, they're trying to generate a collection," he said. "You can yield better results as you track and measure consumers, profiling them against the type of consumers that you're targeting to get better and better at optimizing your tactics the more you use the system."
Companies using Symend's platform, for example, can configure the system to use traditional outreach methods to create financial payment plans or discounts for one-time payments. In addition, Symend's platform enhances the ability of its participating companies to remove some of the hurdles to repayment.
"One of the biggest reasons that people don't repay in time is because many consumers, believe it or not, don't have a comprehensive understanding of credit impacts," said Joshaghani. "So, we can hit them with some credit education, introduce some financial planning tools and connect them with credit rehabilitation platforms."
Symend's goal is not only to collect on debts but also to address repayment issues with the hope to build a better consumer and a better relationship between the consumer and the vendor collector.
"It will generate more consumers paying the initial debt but will also make them less likely to end up in collections on future transactions," Joshaghani said. "It's a long-term approach to understanding why these payments aren't happening rather than just focusing on collecting it."
"What's been traditionally done has had such a low success rate and such a bad consumer result," he said. "It's a very hostile approach. We believe our approach could result in not only a higher collection rate but also a lower cost and a better relationship between the consumer and the vendor."
Joshaghani said that Symend hopes to go live with a few pilot clients sometime in summer 2017.
"The idea is to address the biggest technological and pain point aspects for clients first in the pilot," he said. "As of now, sometime this summer."
Joshaghani noted that, while it's unlikely the debt collections process will ever be perfect, Symend will continue to work on its platform to improve the collections status quo.
"It's not going to be 100 percent - it never will be," he said. "I do hope one day we live in a world where these things are never happening. But until that day, it's all about incremental improvement. Our system is a more scientific, productive, efficient approach. It builds positive engagement with consumers and clients. Hopefully, this will have a better result relative to what's been traditionally done."
