How Location-Powered CRMs are Reshaping Debt Collections and Recovery

The Evolving Landscape of Debt Collection

The debt collection ecosystem across banks and NBFCs is undergoing significant transformation. Rising NPAs, a large customer base in semi-urban and rural markets, and stricter compliance requirements have made traditional collection approaches increasingly insufficient.

According to the RBI’s Financial Stability Report, the GNPA ratio of scheduled commercial banks stood at 3.2% in March 2024, with NBFCs reflecting even higher risk in unsecured personal loans. To combat this, financial institutions are seeking a comprehensive debt collections platform that will help them increase debt resolutions and boost recovery.

Let’s dive deep into the challenges in debt collections and how location-powered CRMs can transform the end-to-end process with location intelligence.

Debt Collections Challenges: Fragmented Systems and Poor Agent Productivity

Banks and NBFCs are focusing on improving debt recovery, yet many still rely on multiple tools, spreadsheets, and legacy systems to manage collections. There are various stakeholders in a collections process, however, Field Collection Executives (FCEs), Collection Managers, and Head of Collections are the key ones.

FCEs often receive incomplete or incorrect customer data, leading to missed visits and poor customer face time. According to a McKinsey India report, inefficient route planning alone can reduce field productivity by up to 25%.

Collection managers have limited visibility into the field operations owing to siloed data across systems. Companies have a tool for route planning, another for case management, and separate platforms for telecalling or compliance tracking. This lack of integration complicates decision-making and slows down execution.

Business leaders often lack a 360-degree view of field operations, delinquency trends, and business performance, which can lead to poor recovery rates. They have to toggle between multiple software to manage collections workflows, resulting in higher operational costs, compliance risk, and limited scalability.

Need for a Location-Powered Unified Debt Collections CRM

To combat these challenges, banks and NBFCs need to onboard a comprehensive debt collections platform like Dista Collect. With location intelligence at its core, the unified debt collections CRM connects field collectors, telecallers, collection agencies, and leadership teams with contextual, location-aware data to drive better decision-making and improve recoveries.

A location-first unified CRM like Dista Collect empowers all the key stakeholders at every stage of debt collection.

1. Field Agents: The software offers a field collectors app that works as a mobile office. It provides optimized routes, borrower details, a daily beat plan, and more, enabling efficient field visits.
2. Collection Managers: Offers geo-visual dashboards and performance insights for real-time territory management, resource forecasting, and case monitoring.
3. Business Leaders: Provides actionable insights on low/high delinquent areas, risk analysis, compliance tracking, 360-degree visualization, and more.

Key Features of a Unified Debt Collections CRM

• Customer 360 Dashboard - Spreadsheets fail to capture the complexities of field operations. A map-based visualization of data including locations of FCEs, branches, TPAs, and delinquent zones - offers decision-makers a single source of truth to make strategic and lending decisions.
• AL/ML-based Case Allocation - Manual case allocations often fail to consider proximity, skill, availability, and priority. Location-first debt collection platforms like Dista Collect dynamically assign cases based on multiple business variables, ensuring that the right field agent visits the right customer. This results in faster resolutions and optimized field performance.

• Route Optimization - Route planning helps FCEs spend more time meeting customers and saves traveling longer distances. Dista’s route optimization engine recommends the shortest and most efficient routes based on multiple constraints, including agent and customer locations, workload, and case priority.
• Identify High-Risk Zones - Location intelligence helps detect delinquency patterns across regions and territories. By analyzing historical data—missed EMIs, DPD trends, and demographic indicators—collection heads can preemptively identify high-risk areas. This enables risk-aware case prioritization and agent deployment.
• Integration with Telecaller Operations - Field intelligence doesn’t end on the ground. Seamless integration with telephony providers enables geo-based call queueing and regional prioritization. Telecallers gain a 360-degree view of the borrower—improving personalization, compliance, and outreach efficiency.
• Repossession and Asset Management - A unified debt collections CRM, such as Dista Collect, optimizes repossession workflows by locating the nearest recovery agents and assigning them tasks with digital documentation. Asset disposal, yard management, and valuation processes are all supported through geo-tagged systems for transparency and compliance.
• Enabling RBI-Compliant Operations - From beat audits to PII handling, digital ID generation for TPAs, and route tracking, Dista Collect ensures regulatory alignment. This reduces non-compliance risks and reinforces operational transparency.
• Unified Collection Workflows - A unified CRM connects the dots across field operations, tele-calling, campaign building, and repossession—offering a centralized platform for all collection activities. This reduces fragmentation and drives seamless case management.

Drive your Collections and Recovery with Location Intelligence

Banks and NBFCs must adopt location-powered tools to remain effective in a competitive and compliance-heavy collections and recovery landscape. Moving beyond legacy systems and fragmented workflows is no longer optional. With Dista’s location-powered unified debt collections CRM, organizations can transform the debt recovery process to drive higher collection rates.

Learn more about Dista Collect and take the first step towards a location-powered debt collections process.