Hardship management software for lenders that tests what a borrower can afford and offers the relief that fits
Same request, same decision, every time, with the reason written down.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Software that takes a hardship request from the first call to a signed offer: it checks the request is complete, works out what the borrower can afford, matches a relief programme and records the decision. Borrower Hardship Management adds seven agents that read the documents and the bank data, build the budget and test every programme, while the hardship specialist decides and signs.
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A borrower says “I can't pay”. The request comes in as phone notes, a web form and a few uploaded pay slips and bank statements, and most of the time something is missing. The specialist chases the documents, then re-keys income and spending into a spreadsheet or onto a notepad, while the account keeps rolling.
Then comes the choice: keep current terms, short-term relief, a rate reduction, an interest-free plan, an extended plan or a settlement. They are not equivalent, and the choice is made by judgement. Two specialists given the same budget often offer different plans, the reason is rarely written down, and a plan the borrower cannot afford breaks within months. Examiners compare the options offered to similarly situated borrowers, and an unwritten reason is hard to defend.
Estimated split for a typical card hardship request, by hand and with the solution, in days.
Seven specialist agents build the borrower's budget and test every relief option against it; the hardship specialist decides and signs.
Renée Okafor's hours at the care center were cut from 36 to 29 a week. Her rewards card ending 4471 carries $9,786.40 at 26.99% APR, and she missed the 15 September payment. Here is her request, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Tomás opens Requests: 38 open, 9 ready to decide, 11 waiting on the borrower, 6 with the agents reading. Each row shows the channel, the reason, how many documents are in, what the borrower has left, the plan that fits and the decision clock. Collection calls pause while a request is open.
Renée Okafor, HC-24117 · Phone + portal · 8 of 8 documents · decide by Tue 13 Oct.
Dwayne Pratt took her call on 1 October and wrote “hours cut, ex helps with the kids”. Her web form arrived 18 minutes later. The request reader found three items missing — the 2 Oct pay slip, proof of the hours cut and proof of the support payments, which only the call notes mentioned — and asked by portal and text. She sent them on 8 October and connected her checking account; the request was complete on 9 October at 16:12.
Never marks a request incomplete for a document the policy does not require.
Her form says $3,148 in and $3,286 out: −$138 a month. Asked what she could pay, she wrote “Honestly nothing right now. Maybe $100 if I skip things.” The ledger shows her figures as she gave them, not yet checked against her documents or her bank data.
The income and document reader reads both pay slips and the employer letter. The bank data reader categorises 214 transactions. The affordability builder fills the ledger line by line, then the programme matcher, consistency checker and letter writer follow. Each step shows in the case run as it finishes.
“2 pay slips: $1,452.80 every two weeks = $3,148 a month · employer letter: 36 → 29 hours from 1 Aug, no end date.”
Take-home pay drops by $342.60 a payday from 21 August, matching the employer letter. Two regular items are not on her form: $350 of child support on the 1st, with three deposits and a county statement behind it, and four pay-later plans at $98 a month, the last ending 14 December 2026. Her food spend averages $498, against the $640 she wrote.
Never treats a one-off as a regular bill.
Each line shows what she said, the 90-day bank average, the guideline for one adult and one child, and the figure used, with numbered source chips. Food is $640 on her form, above the $540 guideline, so $540 is used. $3,498 in, minus $2,772 essentials and $512 other debts, leaves $214.
Budget rule: her figure up to the household guideline; above it, the guideline unless there is a reason.
Six programmes, in the order the hardship policy tries them, each payment drawn against the $214 line. Keep current terms ($318), rate reduction ($315) and the interest-free plan ($272) do not fit. Short-term relief fits for 3 months only — her hours cut has no end date. A settlement needs $5,872 and she has $412. The extended plan, 7.9% fixed over 60 months, is $198: it fits, with $16 to spare. Beside it, 13 of 14 similar borrowers got the same plan.
Never recommends a payment above what the borrower has left.
Renée's son has a prescribed gluten-free diet. Tomás clicks the food figure and tests $640. She would have $114 left, nothing on the ladder fits, and the last rung lights: a referral to free nonprofit credit counselling with collection paused for 60 days. A what-if can only be applied with a reason, which goes on the decision record. Undo puts the ledger back to $214.
Reason: “Her son has a prescribed gluten-free diet; she will send the letter from his doctor.”
The decision record reads request, budget, test, precedent and decision, each figure cited. The plan: $198 a month from 15 November 2026 to 15 October 2031, the $41 late fee waived, the card closed to new purchases, and $2,091 of interest over the plan instead of $8,140 at 26.99%. The letter explains it in plain words and asks her to tell the bank if her situation changes.
Never sends anything; a person signs.
The balance is above Tomás's $7,500 limit, so his signature sends the offer to Priya to co-sign. With both signatures on the record, Tomás sends it to Renée by portal and first-class mail, a day before the decision was due, and calls stay paused.
The same request, seen by the five people who carry it — what their week looked like, and what it looks like now.
Seven specialist agents build the borrower's budget and test every relief option against it; the hardship specialist decides and signs.
Reads the call notes, the web form with the borrower's own budget and each upload; checks the request against the documents the hardship policy requires for the stated reason, and drafts a plain request for anything missing — including what the call notes mention and the form leaves out.
Reads pay slips, employer letters, benefit and support statements; works out monthly take-home pay from the pay frequency, and reads letters for the cause, the date and whether the hardship has an end date.
Using the borrower's read-only, consented bank connection, categorises 90 days of transactions into the budget lines, works out monthly averages and finds regular payments the form leaves out, such as pay-later instalments.
Builds the ledger line by line — what she said, the bank average, the household guideline and the figure used — with the budget rule, and works out money in, essentials, other debts and what is left.
Works out the payment for every programme on the ladder from the balance and the programme rules, tests it against what is left and the spare margin, and recommends the first that fits — or a credit counselling referral if none does.
Finds decided cases from the last 90 days with the same product, a balance within 25%, the same kind of hardship and what is left within $40, and shows what they were offered. An offer that differs goes to the compliance analyst.
Drafts the decision record — request, budget, programmes tested, precedent, decision and reasons — and a plain-language offer letter with the payment, the term, the start date, what happens to the card and the credit report, and how to ask for a review.
Decides and signs; team lead co-signs above $7,500. The agents propose; a named person decides.
The specialist can ask in plain words about the case in front of them — or tell the assistant what to test. Every answer points back to the documents and the bank data.
Why does only the extended plan fit?
Renée has $214 left each month. Current terms at $318 are short by $104, the rate reduction at $315 by $101, and the 36-month interest-free plan at $272 by $58. The extended plan, 60 months at $198, fits with $16 spare. Short-term relief only lasts 3 months and her employer gives no end date for the cut hours; a settlement needs $5,872 and she has $412.
Where does the $350 of child support come from?
It was not on her form, but Dwayne's call notes say “ex helps with the kids each month”, so the request reader asked for proof. The county statement shows a $350 monthly order, paid on the 1st with no arrears, and the bank data has the three deposits on 1 Aug, 1 Sep and 1 Oct. Without it no plan would fit.
Has anyone with a similar budget been offered something different?
In the last 90 days, 14 borrowers had a card balance of $7,000–$12,000, a long-term income drop and $180–$260 left. 13 were offered the extended plan. One — HC-23988, $226 left — was offered a $304 rate reduction, above what she had left; Gwen Holloway reviewed it on 24 Sep and it was re-offered as the extended plan at $191.
What if we accept her $640 food spend?
Food and household goes from the $540 guideline to $640, so she has $114 left. Nothing on the ladder fits — the extended plan at $198 is short by $84 — so the last rung lights: a referral to free credit counselling with collection paused for 60 days. Undo the what-if on the ledger to go back to $214.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The budget rule, the guidelines, the documents you need, the clocks and who may sign are settings — changed in one place, versioned and on the audit trail.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Budget rule | Her figure up to the guideline; above it the guideline unless a reason is given | Her figure up to the guideline · always the bank data where it exists · always her figure, flagged above the guideline |
| Bank data look-back | 90 days, read-only, with the borrower's consent | 60 · 90 · 180 days |
| Spare margin a plan must leave | $0 | $0 to $50, in $5 steps |
| Count regular payments not on the form | On — shown to the specialist | On · Off |
| Household spending guidelines | BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey, lowest income fifth, refreshed each April | A monthly table by household size, from 1 adult to 2 adults and 2 children |
| Proof of income | 2 most recent pay slips | 2 most recent pay slips · 1 pay slip and bank data · 3 most recent pay slips |
| Decision clock | 2 business days from a complete request, collection calls paused | 1 · 2 · 5 business days; pause calls on or off |
| Specialist offers alone up to | $7,500 balance; team lead co-signs to $25,000 | $5,000 · $7,500 · $10,000; co-signer by name |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate · “typical” = published figures (New York Fed, Household Debt and Credit, Q2 2026 — 4.7% of household debt delinquent, 12.9% of card balances 90+ days late; issuer hardship programmes, long-term plans up to 60 months). People, the bank and other companies named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Software that takes a hardship request from the first call to a signed offer: it checks the request is complete, works out what the borrower can afford, matches a relief programme and records the decision. Borrower Hardship Management adds seven agents that read the documents and the bank data, build the budget and test every programme, while the hardship specialist decides and signs.
It builds an income and expenditure ledger from three sources side by side: the borrower's own form, 90 days of bank data and the household spending guideline for her household size. The figure used follows your budget rule — her figure up to the guideline, above it the guideline unless there is a reason — and every figure cites its document or transactions.
Only if she connects it, and only read-only. The bank data reader reads the accounts she connected, works out 90-day averages and finds regular payments her form left out — in the example, $350 of child support and $98 of pay-later instalments.
It tests every programme on your relief ladder, in the order your hardship policy tries them, against what the borrower has left, and recommends the first one that fits. Short-term relief only fits when the hardship is expected to end within its term; if nothing fits, it recommends a referral to free nonprofit credit counselling.
Yes. Before the specialist decides, the consistency checker shows what similar borrowers were offered in the last 90 days. The Fairness view places every decision by what the borrower had left and what they were offered, lists overrides with their reasons, and exports for the examiner.
Yes. The agents recommend; the hardship specialist decides and signs, and above a $7,500 balance the collections team lead co-signs. Agents never change account terms, never contact the borrower outside the channels she chose and never send a letter.
Yes. The relief ladder, the budget rule, the bank data look-back, the spare margin a plan must leave, the household guidelines, the documents required, the decision clock and signing limits are all settings, versioned and on the audit trail.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements — your hardship policy, relief ladder, letter templates and a sample of past requests — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own requests first.
Every contact inside the 7-in-7 rule, spent where it pays.
1-min demoCollections Agent AssistThe one call the rules allow this week, handled right first time.
1-min demoCollections Compliance MonitoringEvery conversation checked, not a small sample, each finding tied to its second.
1-min demoWe'll run Borrower Hardship Management on a sample of your own past hardship requests.