Debtors not always to blame

I AGREE with Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad that these loan defaulters are embarrassing and should feel ashamed.
As someone who has spent most of his career as a debt collections manager and trainer, I find bad debts are not caused solely by the debtors.
They have two main causes:
> Poor credit assessment at point of entry. The wrong people were given credit.
> Poor senior management support for collection efforts. For example, senior management not wanting to be tough, to "let it slide this month", to avoid bad press and complaints.
You can't always blame the debtors if the management created the problem.
But fixing a bad debt problem is easy. The first thing you need is senior management with the courage to set the credit and bad debt expectations.
Second, management must get out of the way and allow the collectors to collect – by all legal means possible. Then watch the money roll in.
Steve Coyle
Kuala Lumpur