Around the world commercial and government enterprises want to harness the power artificial intelligence and the mobile phone to gain faster debt payments and improve the collection of problem accounts.
Mark Casey, who is not well known outside Victoria, believes that having successfully backed a mobile phone credit collection breakthrough in Australia, he can now take a big slice of the $US17 trillion US market and then attempt to transform the way bills are paid around the world.
Now that’s a very ambitious aim and those with similar aims have often been casualties of their own optimism. But the story is a remarkable illustration of how Australian property revenue can be harnessed to open up global technology opportunities with the help of artificial intelligence.
And considerable US progress has been made and a NASDAQ listing is now planned.
Back in 2015, Victorian property entrepreneur Mark Casey and start-up specialist Lewis Romano discussed how both routine and late debt collection was antiquated with letters, emails, phone calls, and sometimes high pressure tactics still in action.
They also realised the debt collection situation was deteriorating because scam phone calls were causing people not to pick up their phone, further delaying debt collections.
And so with Casey’s backing, Romano and others began working on a software program that would attach a button to an SMS, email or similar electronic message to enable an outstanding account to be paid in full or in part using the client’s banking system embedded in their mobile phone. And that also made the arrangement private.
It was a groundbreaking idea and Casey and Romano got great encouragement from a number of enterprises and floated Credit Clear on the ASX in 2021 to sell the service.
Credit Clear had the sole rights to the software in Australia and the right to participate in the application of the software in the US.
There was not a lot of enthusiasm in the Credit Clear board to begin an adventure in the US when the Australian company was still losing money as it built up its client base of enterprises who were using the mobile phone software for debt collection.
As it turned out, their caution was justified because it was quickly found that the Australian software would not work in the complex American banking system.
A new software system would have to be developed to achieve similar outcomes to Australia but able to adapt to the complexities of the US banking and financial system.
Credit Clear in Australia did not want to embark on the hazardous US journey and Casey bought out their US entitlement.
Romano did not want to join the US adventure so, alone, Casey had to build up and fund a US team.
Around this time, revenue from a gigantic 2,500 hectare development at Armstrong Creek/Warralily, between Geelong and the Victorian surf coast that was many years ago a sheep farm, was ramping up.
The Casey family owned about 700 hectares of the development, where 22,000 homes would be built, including 51 per cent of the shopping centre site where former Essendon coach Mark “Bomber” Thompson and Essendon List Manager Adrian Dodoro had each bought 24.5 per cent. (Mark Casey is an Essendon supporter).
To penetrate the US market a totally new software system would have to be developed and Casey funded the $US20m required outlay out of the proceeds of the Armstrong Creek sales.
Credit Clear expects revenue from Australia of between $40m-$42m for this year to June 30 and it will be cash positive. But the long journey has caused start-up losses to reach $41m.
Meanwhile, former Domain chief executive Antony Catalano and Alex Waislitz have convinced Lewis Romano, to develop a regional competitor to the $9bn listed jobs giant Seek.
In the US the new company is called Remitter and Mark Casey will be chairman.
It claims to be able to revolutionise collections across all 50 US states with its artificial intelligence-based technology.
Given US consumer debt market surpasses $US17 trillion there is huge potential.
Remitter also plans to enter the Canadian market and then later Europe but has no plans to challenge Credit Clear in Australia where Casey remains a shareholder but not a director.
Remitter has forecast 2024 calendar year revenue of $US11.8m which would make the company already close to half the size of the Australian operation.
Casey says that the early application of Remitter software is increasing US customer recoveries by 228 per cent and pay rates have doubled.
The history of Australian technology being applied to the US shows that it usually takes longer than the original estimates.
Casey believes Remitter will be the exception, partly because of the Australian experience, albeit with different software and people.
Correction to Monday’s column: I mentioned Qenos needs ethane as a feedstock which is contained in Bass Strait gas but I discovered it is not contained in the large on-shore, low cost Victorian gas deposits.
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