Trends in Receivables Management 2026
Program
The Tisza government’s radical reform is fundamentally overhauling the domestic debt collection chain. The phasing out of the profit-oriented enforcement model and the transfer of the system to judicial and state control will have a direct impact on the returns on bank and debt collection portfolios, liquidity, and payment discipline.
The comprehensive overhaul of the notary system also significantly affects the most important mass-scale tool of debt collection: the payment order (FMH) procedure. As the government reform places the notary sector under stricter state and judicial oversight and transitions it to a nonprofit basis, creditors face key challenges. In the first section, we address the market risks and operational challenges posed by the anticipated regulatory changes.
How will the restructuring of the debt collection chain affect enforcement proceedings, notary records, and foreign-currency loan portfolios?
The effectiveness of customer management stands or falls on accurate debt investigation. The Hungarian subsidiary of the EOS Group analyzed data on more than 650,000 unsecured cases managed in Hungary in 2025. The study highlights trends surrounding debt, with a particular focus on bank and telecommunications debts (differences across age groups, payment methods, etc.), and the subsequent corporate panel discussion will cover every topic of concern to the domestic debt collection industry.
Debt collection is, at its core, about human behavior – yet receivables management has long relied on a behaviorally naive toolkit of legal language, penalties, and a one-size-fits-all approach.
Drawing on a decade of applying behavioral science and AI at PAIR Finance across millions of consumer interactions, this keynote introduces an evidence-based framework for debt collection that is simultaneously more effective and more debtor-friendly. The framework rests on four behavioral pillars that will be briefly introduced. At the center of the talk is the question every receivables professional now faces: what does AI actually do to the psychology of a debt interaction? Presenting results from a large-scale experimental study across eleven European countries (n = 3,514), the keynote shows that AI-mediated communication is perceived as more efficient and, strikingly, reduces the stigma debtors feel – without diminishing trust – while human contact remains advantageous where fairness and empathy are paramount.
Attendees will leave with a practical lens for redesigning the debtor journey toward a more consumer-centered recovery.
The next wave of artificial intelligence in business is no longer simply about writing emails faster or getting better responses from a chatbot. We’re getting closer and closer to a point where autonomous AI agents will be able to handle entire administrative processes 24/7: verifying data, processing documents, updating statuses, prioritizing tasks, filling out templates, preparing communications, and, when necessary, forwarding critical items for human approval.
This 30-minute presentation demonstrates what this change could mean for our processes: how back-office operations might be transformed, which processes can be automated first, where human oversight is still needed, and how we can build AI-based workflows today that not only assist but actually perform the work.
The presentation has a practical focus: it does not cover general AI trends, but rather uses concrete examples to demonstrate what an administrative process supported by AI agents might look like, and what steps lead from manual, fragmented work to continuously running, controlled automation.
Contact
