The AI agent handles full conversations - it understands the reason for delinquency and negotiates a payment - and only transfers to a live rep when needed. With Kato, we now get through our entire returned-payment list every day before 12.30pm. That frees our reps to focus on the harder accounts - stop payments, account closures, and accounts with multiple returns. In just two weeks we saw our put-back active rate climb from 73% to 77%, driving thousands of dollars in payments. What impressed us most about Kato was the speed of iteration, from adding Spanish support to customizing call verbiage to align with our brand. We're excited to continue the partnership by building a Salesforce integration and expanding Kato to use cases in later stage delinquencies and servicing.
Director of Recoveries at Funding Metrics
With Kato, we automated our returned-payment calls and are seeing measurable impact on our “put back active” rate:
0%
0%
"put back active" rate (up from 73%)
Company Overview
Funding Metrics is a financial technology company providing working capital and merchant cash advances to small businesses nationwide. Backed by a team of industry experts and data scientists, Funding Metrics unlocks financing for business owners to drive sustainable growth and prosper.
Problem
Reps were completing returned-payment calls, but the process was manual and time consuming. That pulled them away from harder-to-collect accounts, and as funding volume grew, it would have meant adding headcount.
Funding Metrics needed a solution that could:
Complete the full returned-payment list consistently and early in the day
Handle full borrower conversations, including negotiation and payment authorization
Escalate intelligently to human agents when necessary
Solution
Kato deployed a voice AI agent to automate returned-payment calls for all Funding Metrics borrowers. The AI agent proactively engages borrowers and completes conversations end to end, understanding the reason for delinquency and either scheduling a payment or offering a payment reduction. When a call needs a human, Kato transfers it live to a rep.
The agent launched in just a few weeks, delivering:
More time for harder-to-collect accounts: Kato gets through the full returned-payment list before 12:30pm daily. Now reps get the rest of the day back for harder accounts.
Real conversations, not just dials: The AI agent handles conversations end to end, work that previously required a live rep.
Authentic voice experience: Borrowers engaged in full conversations and some found it indistinguishable from a human.
Rapid iteration: The Kato team continuously and proactively refined call performance - for example, adding Spanish support, improving interpretation of ambiguous responses and customizing call verbiage to align with the company’s brand.
As a result, Funding Metrics saw the put-back active rate climb from 73% to 77% in just two weeks, driving thousands of dollars in payments. With Kato handling early-stage returned-payment volume, servicing reps can spend more time toward harder-to-collect accounts - stop payments, account closures, and accounts with multiple returns - and the company can grow funding volume without adding servicing staff.
Looking ahead, Kato is building direct integrations with Funding Metrics' Salesforce environment to eliminate manual CSV uploads and will be expanding to use cases in both servicing (e.g. renewals) and later-stage delinquency (e.g. charge-offs).
