Hardship Officer

Reporting to the Collections Team Leader, this role offers an opportunity to contribute to the design and implementation of scalable hardship processes, support broader collections operations, and play a meaningful role in helping customers recover while protecting business interests. As the dedicated hardship function is still evolving, this role will also provide support to the Early Collections team when not actively managing hardship matters. This includes assisting with administrative tasks, managing our shared team inbox, and responding to customer enquiries within a 24-hour SLA. The successful candidate must be adaptable and willing to contribute to broader team priorities as we scale and embed hardship practices more formally across the business.

As a Hardship Office, you can expect to: 

• Oversee a portfolio of high-risk and hardship accounts, including both secured and unsecured lending, ensuring tailored support and compliance with responsible lending obligations.
• Evaluate financial hardship applications, repayment history, and risk factors to develop and implement customized solutions such as revised repayments, pauses, or variations.
• Identify early signs of financial loss and apply mitigation strategies; escalate deteriorating accounts for asset recovery, legal action, or write-off consideration.
• Proactively engage with customers in arrears, clearly and compassionately communicate hardship decisions, and manage sensitive conversations and disputes with professionalism.
• Liaise with customers, guarantors, financial counsellors, and third parties to facilitate outcomes, while ensuring all case files are complete, compliant, and audit-ready.
• Provide relief support to the Early Collections team as needed, including responding to customer enquiries from the shared inbox and completing administrative tasks to meet service-level expectations

What the successful candidate will look like:

• 2-5 years in a financial hardship role, adjacent to collections, within asset finance or financial services industries with strong understanding of the collections lifecycle and hardship practices.
• Familiarity with relevant legislation and guidelines including the National Credit Code (Section 72), NCCP Act, ASIC Regulatory Guides (RG209, RG271), Australian Privacy Principles, ACCC/ASIC Debt Collection Guidelines, and AFCA protocols.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, capable of handling complex and sensitive conversations with empathy and clarity, especially with vulnerable or distressed customers.
• Excellent negotiation and problem-solving abilities, balancing customer care with commercial outcomes; emotionally intelligent and resilient under pressure.
• High attention to detail, compliance-focused, organised and reliable with the ability to manage high volumes and competing priorities; proficient in CRM systems and Microsoft Office Suite.
• A proactive team player passionate about helping customers through hardship, committed to responsible lending, and interested in improving hardship strategies and scalable solutions; experience in asset finance or regulated lending is highly desirable.
  

Why Join Avanti Finance Group?

Be part of an innovative and growing organisation that is shaping the future of non-bank lending. Join a supportive and collaborative team that values expertise, growth, and career progression, offering a competitive salary package and benefits. This role provides exciting opportunities for professional development and advancement in a high-performance environment, where your skills and contributions will be recognised and rewarded.

What's in it for me?

Within the Avanti Finance Group, you can look forward to flexible and hybrid working as we offer up to two days working from home following your initial training period. We give back to our communities through our support of Duffy Books, and by offering an Annual Volunteer Day for you to use for a purpose that's close to your heart. We believe in celebrating diversity, and we also celebrate talent and development by working with you through an established capability framework that puts you in the driving seat of your development while achieving business goals. You won't find a gender pay gap here, as we have great remuneration packages but as we all know there's more to an awesome job than the money. If you are happy and fulfilling your potential, while feeling supported, valued and empowered, then that’s a win for us! Fresh fruit, Healthy Food Guide Memberships, and increased Kiwisaver match is there for you to feel good from the inside out.