Fintech: Scots insolvency firm develops digital game changer for unsecured creditors

The owner of a Scottish insolvency firm is aiming to use a new financial technology and the power of social media to provide a “fairer crack of the whip” for unsecured creditors to recoup their money in the event of a liquidation.

Middlebrooks Business Recovery & Advice, which has offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, believes its hi-tech solution and digitally integrated approach represents a groundbreaking development for the insolvency industry.

The practice’s founder, Claire Middlebrook, said: “These (unsecured creditors) are people who an insolvency can affect the most, because if they have an extended line of credit to someone that goes bust it sometimes has a serious impact on them as well.”

Her innovative approach is aiming to revolutionise the way such firms attempt to retrieve funds and address the prevailing feeling among affected creditors that to pursue such a matter would prove inevitably prove fruitless.

To achieve this, Ms Middlebrook explained that her recovery company, set up in 2015 after she spent more than ten years in the insolvency profession, will open a special portal on its website to enabling creditors to send in their claims electronically.

The new method is designed to capitalise on new insolvency legislation allowing documents to be submitted in this way.

Ms Middlebrook, who will also look to have her firm utilise social media during a large insolvency by creating hash tags allowing people to direct message the firm’s team with questions, said: “This way we make it easier for people to interact with us and exchange information quickly without waiting days for a reply.”

Ms Middlebrook added: “For years at insolvency conferences we have talked about encouraging unsecured creditors to engage more with the process. I am moving in the direction of correcting that.”