UK businesses are falling behind on AI in payments and collections

In this episode of Debt Matters, we look at a new UK payments and collections story with big implications for credit control, arrears management, and business cash flow.

UK businesses are using AI in payments more slowly than their European peers. The gap is being linked to skills shortages, uncertainty around regulation, and hesitation about how much value AI can really deliver. At the same time, firms already using AI say it is helping reduce labour costs, improve predictability, and tackle late payments earlier.

This episode explores what that means for UK debt collection teams, finance leaders, and businesses trying to get paid faster without damaging customer relationships.

Main points

1. The UK is behind Europe on AI in payments

61% of UK businesses are using AI in payments, compared with a European average of 66%. That is a wider gap than last year, when the UK stood at 58% versus 59% across Europe.

That matters because payments management is no longer just an admin task. It now sits much closer to risk management, customer experience, and collections performance.

2. AI is moving beyond hype into the real payments cycle

AI can support the full payment journey, including invoice generation, account queries, dispute handling, and identifying invoices that are likely to go overdue. It can also provide more tailored support to customers.

For debt collection professionals, that means AI is not just about replacing manual tasks. It is about spotting risk earlier and improving the timing and tone of collections activity.

3. Late payments are the real business problem underneath this story

Intrum’s UK managing director, Gavin Flynn, said firms struggling with late payments could use these tools to reduce delays and improve predictability. Businesses already using AI in payments are also said to be saving £6.6 billion a year in labour costs, equal to around a fifth of the overall cost of chasing late and non-payment.

Why this matters for debt collection in the UK

This story is not really about whether AI is trendy. It is about whether UK businesses can modernise collections before bad debt, admin pressure, and slower cash flow become even bigger problems.

There are 3 clear takeaways here:

Businesses that wait too long may end up collecting more slowly than competitors. Only 48% of UK businesses believe they will fall behind if they fail to implement AI tools in the back office, which suggests many firms may still be underestimating the risk.

The biggest barriers are practical, not theoretical. The main blockers highlighted are lack of skills and uncertainty over regulation, not lack of possible use cases.

Customer behaviour may be changing faster than business assumptions. The gap between what firms think customers want and what consumers say they would accept could become important in digital collections strategies.

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