Why is 2026 a challenging time for debt collection?
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, low interest rates, abundant liquidity and government support helped limit the immediate impact on businesses. But since then, a series of geopolitical shocks has put companies under increasing pressure. According to the latest Global Insolvency Outlook by Allianz Trade, global business insolvencies are expected to increase by 5% in 2026 and 1% in 2027, marking five consecutive years of increases.
For companies trading internationally, rising insolvencies are not the only challenge. Recovering unpaid invoices across borders means navigating differences in local systems that differ widely in terms of payment practices, legal procedures, costs and insolvency frameworks. This requires local expertise and a thorough understanding of each market.
The scale of these disparities is clear in our 2026 Collection Complexity Score, which found that recovering outstanding debt is almost three times more difficult in Saudi Arabia than in Germany. And while the gap between advanced and emerging economies is gradually narrowing, debt collection remains particularly complicated in the Middle East and Africa region.
How technology is transforming the receivables process
Unpaid invoices and credit risk are a major fear for clients. As a result, there’s an increased expectation that their credit insurer acts as a responsive and transparent partner throughout the credit cycle, and also specifically within the claims and collection processes: from submitting a claim and collecting receivables including support in judicial proceedings, to the claim payment. Digitalization and the widespread use of AI have raised these expectations, and these same technologies are helping insurers meet them while improving operational efficiency.
Our Claims & Collection teams are already using AI to improve operations. Take our claims comments analyzer: this AI tool assesses the comments added to customer claims, helping to categorize and either send them to the right team member or direct them to automatic processing, reducing the time spent on straightforward cases and freeing up time for more complex ones. We also use AI to analyze factors such as the debtor’s country, sector, size, legal situation and outstanding debt to help our experts identify the most appropriate course of action. This includes determining when to intervene and whether an amicable or legal approach is more likely to succeed. The same AI capabilities can also support greater automation and digitalization in amicable collection for less complex cases, with processes adapted to local payment practices, legal requirements and business context.
New technologies are also useful for administrative tasks and fraud detection: AI can process large amounts of data and identify suspicious patterns, while digitalization helps simplify claims submissions and can improve communication throughout the Claims & Collections processes.
Why the human element is essential to debt recovery
Recovering an unpaid invoice is rarely just a financial transaction. Businesses have to balance the need to secure payment with the importance of preserving valuable commercial relationships. That’s why, despite the leaps made in technology, successful debt collection remains dependent on human relationships. It requires judgment, strong negotiation skills and an understanding of the circumstances around the case.
Across borders, that understanding must extend to local payment practices, business cultures and legal frameworks. Our approach brings together local teams and multilingual legal and financial experts to tailor the recovery strategy to each case. Colleagues familiar with local business practices handle sensitive conversations about unpaid bills, while legal specialists help navigate complex judicial or insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings. Other specialists focus on recovering goods, overcoming distance, perishability or seasonality barriers.
Digital tools can recommend a course of action in standard cases, but our experienced professionals always review and adapt these recommendations. By streamlining standard cases, technology frees up our collectors to focus on complex situations, where human judgment, negotiation skills and a tailored approach are essential to recovering payment while preserving business relationships. We leverage a network of approximately 500 Claims & collections colleagues in over 40 countries to bring in-depth expertise to every claim. And I’m proud to say our teams succeed in completing 50% of recoveries during the first week.
