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Related articles Lenders must prepare

The publication of Robert Jenrick’s proposed reforms to planning in Feb- ruary provides us with a big clue. His suggested expansion of permitted development rights is thought likely to lead to unused retail and even office space being converted into housing or hotel accommodation. On the High Street and elsewhere the pandemic has put rocket boost- ers under changes that were already taking place. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the migration of spending towards digital channels. Cash is no longer "king" and is going to struggle to gain its former foothold in people’s wallets. We have all got much more used to digital spending with cards, online and on smartphones, and the new £100 contactless limit can only accelerate this trend. The uplift, from £45, is undoubtedly going to make payment security and fraud even bigger issues than they already were. Thankfully, finance providers have been using the slower pace of lending to make back office improvements to ensure they are better placed to handle digital security and what could be a tsunami of spending when restrictions are lifted. Automated decisioning - in the form of ADP - has been at the top of many of their agendas. What better way to counter fraud and cope with the volumes of applications that are coming down the line than have a system that is the ultimate in scalability?

It is now even better than it was prior to the lockdown. Thanks to some intensive development work on the part of our skilled team of software engineers, a new Universal Risk Model Adaptor has been incorporat- ed to ensure lenders’ legacy score- card systems are fully utilised by ADP. Transitioning over to an automated platform has never been easier for lenders and their credit risk teams. Little wonder more lenders have been looking to install the award-winning platform - Morses Club and Decimal Factor being the most recent. What to all of us has seemed like an eternity of pandemic restrictions look set to be finally coming to an end. With luck we are only going to have to wait a few more weeks before our former liberties are returned. On April 12 non-essential retail is set to open its doors, along with hair- dressers, beer gardens, theme parks, swimming pools and gyms. Then, on May 17, we can begin to spend again in hotels and indoor hospitali- ty venues. On June 21, all remaining social contact rules are being lifted and the remainder of the economy opened. That is about 12 weeks from the date you are likely to be reading this edito- rial to the final phase of coming out of lockdown...We’re almost there!

Lenders risk being overwhelmed by credit applications when the UK lifts lockdown restrictions, predicts David Wylie

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The customer is still king David Wylie discusses how the col- lapse of big high street names shows there is a pressing need to change with the times

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