Milestones 2021

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Rebalanced strategy

After conducting a performance review, analysing the fundamental issues underlying the recent years’ unsatisfying performance, we redirected the strategy towards focus on core business – secured and unsecured non-performing loans from consumers and SMEs acquired from our banking partners.

Transformation programme

A transformation programme to improve profitability and returns was launched after the summer, including:

Investments strategy rejuvenation – growth by focusing investments in debt portfolios with attractive risk adjusted returns and mainly on markets where we have experience and reliable data and statistics

Increased collection effectivity – strengthen collection performance e.g. by using data driven analytics and digital solutions

Cost reduction – efficiency activities to lowering the absolute non-operational costs.

New leadership and governance

A majority of new board members were elected on the annual general meeting in April. Since then a new CEO, CFO, CIO and COO were appointed and several other organisational changes took place in the senior management with the aim to simplify the organisational structure.

Securitisation programme

An agreement regarding securitisation was signed with Magnetar Capital, an alternative investment manager. It becomes a part our funding model mitigating the impact of the stricter regulatory changes including increased risk-weights and the NPL Prudential Backstop regulation and strengthens our purchase capabilities.

Portfolio acquisitions

The market activity for NPL portfolio acquisitions improved from the highly Covid-affected 2020 and including the Greek portfolio signed late in the year carried out portfolio acquisitions of SEK 4.7bn.

Reached 28 per cent digital collection

End of 2021, nearly one customer of three is now managing and paying its debt through the self-service channels.

Bank deposits in the UK

In 2021 we started to offer deposit services also to customers in the UK, in addition to Sweden and Germany. Funding by offering bank deposits on the same markets as we have large portfolios lowers our currency risks.

Great Place to Work certifications in eight markets

This year we achieved a Great Place to Work certification in eight countries. The certification is based on the employees’ evaluation of the workplace and demonstrates a high level of trust, pride and commitment. A key ingredient for this success is our support for employees’ well-being and mental health during Covid-19. In fact, internal survey results show that our management of the pandemic increased employee loyalty, productivity and engagement.

Expansion of the digital offering

Our customers in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK can now manage their debt online through the self-service portal.

Germany and France customers now have access to a 24/7 support service thanks to the chatbot deployment.

Furthermore digital wallets represent 25 per cent of the general online payment market and we extended our digital payment solutions to Blik, Paypal, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Annual and sustainability report 2021