In October 2019, the Any day Direct Debit (ADDD) project was initiated. Contract negotiations and scope followed along with onboarding of the new system. This was especially relevant with the fast-growing number of customers transitioning off of Housing Benefit (HB) to Universal Credit (UC), where customers move away from their rent and other payments being made by the local authority, instead receiving the monies direct to their bank account and essentially become ‘self-payers’. This represents a significant and ongoing risk of arrears growth and subsequent increase in write off risks.
To reduce the risk, due to the large volume of customers migrating over, it was decided the service would go live in two stages. The first stage commenced on the 15th of June 2020 and involved the setting up of all new Direct Debits using the allpay solution.
The second stage began on the 27th of July 2020 and involved the migration of all existing Direct Debits to the allpay solution, meaning collections, amendments, and cancellations were all managed via the allpay solution.