HomeBanks & financial institutionsRecovering your debts

The debt recovery team at Francis Wilks & Jones is one of the best in the country.  For nearly two decades, we have been helping banks and financial institutions recover outstanding debts, whatever the size, volume or complexity.<

Our team ethos and approach

Our goal is simple. To recover our clients’ debts as quickly and efficiently as possible.

We understand the fundamental importance that maximising recoveries (and minimising impairment) can make to the profitability of a business. Banks and other financial institutions are no different. At Francis Wilks & Jones, we don’t just go through the motions when it comes to debt recovery. The in-depth experience of our team means that we can consider each debt claim carefully and work out the best approach to take to maximise recoveries on that particular case.

State of the art debt recovery systems

A brilliant team is only one half of the equation when it comes to successful debt recovery.  The other half is harnessing the use of technology and cutting-edge systems to help deliver the best results as efficiently as possible.

  • over the years we have invested heavily to ensure that we have our own state of the art case management systems;
  • these allow us to process large volumes of debt recovery cases whilst remaining completely in control;
  • we have also developed bespoke systems which allow our clients to upload their debt data directly into our case management system to enable fast and efficient action.

Recovery+

Our latest technology offering to our banking and financial clients is Recovery +, a bespoke development 2 years in the making and developed by Andy Wilks. 

Recovery + is a fully automated debt letter cycle, allowing our clients access to a suite of carefully crafted legal demand letters which can then be sent out by e-mail to debtors. Recovery + can integrate with our clients’ own accounting systems, allowing automated upload of debt data. It can process single debts or volume debts.

  • Recovery + is designed to allow our clients to take control of the pre-issue stage of a debt action, without the need for legal intervention;
  • it is easy to use, effective and highly cost efficient;
  • it provides up to the minute real time reporting for clients, total cost transparency and the ability to maximise recoveries by including all statutory entitlements such as Late Payment Interest and Late Payment compensation.

To learn more about Recovery + – simply get in touch and we would be delighted to provide a free demonstration of how we can help you.  

Legal action

Sometimes formal legal action is inevitable to recover outstanding debts.

Should the need for legal proceedings arise, our systems are fully integrated with the courts allowing same day processing and issuing of proceedings through Money Claims On-line for a majority of claims up to debts of £100,000.

Having said that, we don’t simply “push things through” the county court or high court when better options might be available.  Where we can, we prefer to use insolvency-based recovery methods such as

  • statutory demands;
  • winding up petitions; and
  • bankruptcy petitions.

Suffice to say, our team fully understands all of the appropriate recovery tools available and when best to use them.

Enforcement

If judgment is obtained and enforcement action needed, we again consider the most appropriate form of action to take. This can range from

  • the traditional use of the high court enforcement officer;
  • hard-hitting use of statutory demands, winding up petitions and bankruptcy petitions; and
  • applications for third party debt orders, charging orders or attachment of earnings orders.

Full ledger collect outs

We are fully appreciative of the services provided by a number of well-known collection agencies and we often work alongside these entities to assist with that offering.

However, our systems mean that there is no real reason why we cannot become involved at the outset and collect in the full ledger, rather than only being engaged where the rump of the debt has already been compromised. In our experience, engaging with Francis Wilks & Jones at the very early stages of a full ledger collect-out is most likely to achieve the best recovery results, as we can work with you to ensure that the collect-out strategy sends the most appropriate message to the targeted customer base.

Please contact us if you would like to understand more about the benefits of using us to outsource your collect out process.

Pricing

We offer our clients a range of competitive pricing options. Simply contact us to discuss what might be best for you.


Whatever the nature of your debt recovery needs, our expert team can help. From single debtor scenarios, to complete ledger collect outs – we have the team and systems to help.

I can strongly recommend Francis Wilks & Jones and, in particular, their specialist debt recovery and litigation teams. In my capacity as a liquidator of insolvent companies, I often require their assistance to help recover sums due to a company from its customers. The expertise of Francis Wilks & Jones in this area has been instrumental in maximising recoveries of company ledgers and maximising returns to creditors.

Mike Solomons, partner at BM Advisory

Key contacts

Anna Beetson

Anna Beetson

Trainee Solicitor

Andy Wilks

Andy Wilks

Managing Partner

Shona Houghton

Shona Houghton

Senior Associate

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Case studies

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