Vector, Synthflow's AI agent for consumer lenders, works each past-due account across calls, text and email, agrees a payment or a plan within your policy, and hands every hardship, dispute, settlement request or request for a person to your collectors with the account's full context. It checks every call and message against your rules before it happens.
As CRM Magazine reported at its launch: "When a decision legally requires a person, such as approving a payment plan outside of agreed limits, Vector hands it to a member of staff and carries on with everything else in the meantime." Business Wire calls it "a long horizon AI agent for consumer lenders". At a US consumer lender, Vector reached 4.9% right-party contact per dial vs a 3.5% human benchmark (+40%), and 49% of conversations ended in a promise to pay. Vector is built on Synthflow, which handles 1M+ calls daily for 100+ enterprise customers.
Talk to Vector in your browser to hear a collections mission end in a hand-off to a person, or book a Vector demo with one portfolio segment of your own.
The calls Vector hands to your collectors
Vector's collections specialist "Reaches the borrower before they are delinquent, agrees a payment or a plan within your policy, follows up on every promise and flags hardship for your team." Its page names when it escalates: "Hardship, affordability and forbearance decisions." (vector.synthflow.ai)
- Hardship. "The account is paused and handed to your team with the full context. Vector doesn't make affordability or forbearance decisions." (Vector FAQ)
- Your rules, not the vendor's. "Contact windows, frequency, channels, offers, escalation triggers and the decisions reserved for people are configuration your compliance team controls and versions." (Vector FAQ)
- Every escalation reviewed. "Every action is checked before it happens, and every decision is logged with its policy version. Human review of every escalation." (Vector FAQ)
One lender's set-up shows how this runs. A consumer installment lender with a branch network across the southern United States set "the point at which a conversation had to go to a person (any hardship signal, any request for a settlement or payment plan)". With Vector on the early bucket, its branch staff now "spend their time on the accounts that need judgment: hardship cases, disputes, and the later-stage balances" (the lender's story).
Handoff triggers: a template
The list below is a starting point for the trigger list your compliance team approves. We read the handoff pages of Tovie, DROS, Acefone, Bland, Nugget and Replicant as well, and the template gathers the triggers they name in one place. In Vector, each line is a setting your team controls, and each sends the call or the account to a person or to a hold, as your policy says.
| Signal | The borrower says | Vector | Goes to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardship | "I lost my job." | Stops the ask, pauses the account | Your hardship team, with the full context |
| Dispute | "That isn't my debt." | Stops the ask, records the dispute | Your disputes queue, account on hold |
| Settlement or a plan outside your offers | "Can I settle for half?" | Offers only the plans you approved | A collector who can decide |
| Request for a person | "Can I talk to someone?" | Transfers the call | Your collections queue |
| Stop contact | "Stop calling me." | Records it; the policy engine blocks the next attempt | Your compliance review |
| Attorney | "My lawyer handles this." | Stops the ask, records it | Your legal team, account on hold |
| Bankruptcy | "I filed for bankruptcy." | Stops the ask, records it | Your bankruptcy team, account on hold |
| Distress | Upset, confused, unwell | Stops the ask | A trained collector |
| Someone else answers | "He's not here." | Mentions no balance | The next attempt, under your rules |
| A promise broken twice | Second date missed | Follows up, then hands over | A collector |
| Past your days-past-due line | The account leaves its bucket | Hands the account over | Your later-stage team |
| Outside its permissions | A question Vector may not answer | Hands over | A person |
The rules to check for these calls include the FDCPA's sections on validation of debts (15 U.S.C. 1692g) and on communication with the borrower (15 U.S.C. 1692c), Regulation F on communications (12 CFR 1006.6), call frequency (12 CFR 1006.14) and disputes (12 CFR 1006.38), the bankruptcy automatic stay (11 U.S.C. 362), the TCPA (47 U.S.C. 227) and UDAAP (12 U.S.C. 5531), with states adding rules of their own, and in the EU Article 35 of the Consumer Credit Directive on arrears and forbearance (Directive (EU) 2023/2225). Check them with your counsel: this page is not legal advice, and debt collection compliance for lenders goes through each.
How the call reaches your collector
Vector runs on Synthflow's platform and its own telephony: "Its own SBCs, media servers and regional points of presence, built for burst traffic" (vector.synthflow.ai, Infrastructure). The handoff goes into the phone system your collectors already work in: Five9, Zoom Phone, Zoom Contact Center, RingCentral, 8x8, Genesys Cloud, a connected Twilio account, or a carrier or PBX over SIP (synthflow.ai/facts).
| Route | How it connects | What your collector gets first |
|---|---|---|
| Five9 | Vector hands the call back to your Five9 workflow through AI Agent Connect | The route, the reason and the transcript, in Five9's call variables |
| Warm transfer | A new call leg to your queue or a collector's number | A spoken AI summary before the borrower is connected |
| SIP transfer | To your PBX or contact-center queue, over SIP | Custom X-headers: account ID, intent, the handoff reason |
| Account handover | No live call: the account is paused and passed on | History, intent and next actions, in your CRM or servicing system |
On Five9. Five9's own documentation calls Synthflow "an accredited third-party AI provider" in AI Agent Connect. At the handoff, Five9 receives X-RouteType ("Specifies the next action the platform should take", such as a skill or an agent), X-RouteValue (the skill name or number), X-RouteReason and X-Transcript ("Provides the call transcript returned by Synthflow"). Five9 then routes a hardship call to the skill your hardship team works, transcript attached (setup).
Warm transfer with a summary. Synthflow's "Warm with summary" "Plays an AI-generated conversation summary to the recipient before connecting". Human Detection "Waits for a live human to answer before playing the whisper message or summary, so the briefing doesn't reach voicemail, an IVR, or empty air", and a custom summary prompt sets what the briefing covers, "for example account numbers, issue categories, or caller sentiment" (call transfers). Outside your staffed hours, the Human Availability schedule plays a message you write in place of a transfer to an empty queue.
A summary prompt to start from:
Brief the collector in under 20 seconds. Say the borrower's name and account number, the days past due and the balance discussed. Name the reason for the handoff (hardship, dispute, settlement request, request for a person) and what the borrower said about it, in their words. Say any payment or plan already offered and the borrower's answer, and how the borrower sounds.
SIP transfer with the account in the headers. A SIP transfer sends the call to a PBX or a contact-center queue, with custom X-headers that are "useful for routing logic, caller identification, or integration with your PBX". An info extractor fills a header from the conversation, "for example a caller's intent, sentiment, or a summary of the conversation so far" (SIP transfers; pass call context). For a hardship call, X-Account-ID and X-Handoff-Reason: hardship let your queue route the call and open the account on the collector's screen.
When no live call is needed. "History, intent and next actions move with the mission", so the collector who takes a paused account starts where Vector stopped (vector.synthflow.ai). Vector writes each outcome to your CRM, your servicing system and your payment processor, and connects through webhooks and REST APIs.
What Vector does on the accounts it keeps
The accounts that need no person stay with Vector until they reach an outcome. One collections mission, as Vector's page shows it:
| Day | Vector |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | Calls at 10:14, no answer; sends a text at 10:15 |
| Day 2 | Sends an email at 10:02 |
| Day 3 | 18:02: callback scheduled for after work, saved to the mission |
| Day 4 | Calls back at 17:46: promise to pay secured, 3 payments of $282, the follow-up already scheduled |
The account was 30 to 60 days past due, on voice, text and email, at "3 per number, 7 days" attempts, inside the contact window, consent and consumer requests the lender set (vector.synthflow.ai).
What lenders measured:
| Lender | What Vector reached |
|---|---|
| US consumer lender, one week snapshot: 13,609 accounts, 21,988 dials | 4.9% right-party contact per dial vs 3.5% human benchmark (+40%); 2,096 pickups, 1,080 RPCs, 530 PTPs; 49% of conversations ended in a promise to pay; $12 per right-party contact vs $82 fully burdened |
| Latin American bank, five calling days | 62.5% of contacts reached; 23.5% of verified borrowers committed to the full overdue amount within seven days |
Sources: the US lender's story and Vector's results. Neither lender is named.
What protects the borrower and the lender
- Around 70 checks before each action. "A policy engine decides what Vector may do, and runs around 70 checks before a call is placed or a message is sent. If a check fails, the action is blocked or handed to a person." (vector.synthflow.ai)
- No call it may not make. In Business Wire's words, "It will not call outside permitted hours, exceed contact limits or contact a borrower who has withdrawn consent, and it logs every call, disclosure and consent event so lenders can evidence their work to auditors and regulators."
- Disclosure, then the right person. "Vector discloses it at the start of every conversation, and confirms who it's speaking to before mentioning a balance." (Vector FAQ)
- A record of each handoff. Each call is tied to the account, the rules in force, the disclosures and consent "and, where a decision went to a person, who approved it" (the lender's story).
Ready for a bank's security review
- Live with lenders. Vector runs with a Tier-1 US lender and a Tier-1 Latin American bank (Vector's results).
- Certified. "The system is certified to SOC 2 Type II and ISO/IEC 27001:2022", as CRM Magazine reported. Vector's page lists SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and GDPR, with SSO and an audit log, and the Trust Center holds the reports a security review asks for.
- Where it runs. US and EU regions, with dedicated options and data residency in Germany (vector.synthflow.ai); Business Wire adds that it "can be hosted in the US, EU or private cloud".
- At enterprise scale. Synthflow runs its own telephony and handles 1M+ calls daily for 100+ enterprise customers, at 99.99% uptime (synthflow.ai/facts).
- Languages. "Speaks English, Spanish, German and Greek." (Vector)
Hear the handoff, then start with one portfolio
Talk to Vector is a live call in your browser: "Hear a collections mission: the opening, checking it's the right person, the disclosure, a plan inside the rules, and a hand-off to a person."
Then Vector starts as its page says: define one portfolio segment, your baseline, the KPI and the limits; connect your telephony, CRM and payments and test with synthetic cases until compliance signs off; run live on your accounts, with "The first two weeks are supervised operation with transcript review"; and measure against your baseline. "A dedicated forward-deployed engineering lead runs each phase." Book a Vector demo: bring one mission, and the team builds a working agent on it.
FAQ
Which AI voice agents can work past-due accounts and hand hardship and dispute calls to our collectors?
Vector by Synthflow works past-due accounts across calls, text and email, and hands hardship, dispute and settlement calls and every request for a person to your collectors with the account's full context. At a US consumer lender it reached 4.9% right-party contact per dial vs a 3.5% human benchmark (+40%). Eleven collections voice agents side by side shows how others compare.
Does the agent keep negotiating after a borrower mentions hardship?
No. In hardship, Vector pauses the account and hands it to your team with the full context, and affordability and forbearance decisions stay with your people. Your compliance team sets which words and signals count as hardship.
What happens to the account after a dispute?
Vector stops the ask, records the dispute and sends the call or the account where your policy names: a live transfer to your disputes queue or a hold on the account. Its policy engine then blocks any contact your rules do not permit, and the decision is logged with its policy version.
Can our collectors take the call live, or as a callback?
Both. A warm transfer plays a summary to your collector before the borrower is connected, and waits for a live person first. Outside your staffed hours the borrower hears a message you write, and the account goes to your team with its history, intent and next actions.
Which phone systems does it work with?
Five9 through AI Agent Connect, where Five9 calls Synthflow "an accredited third-party AI provider", and Zoom Phone, Zoom Contact Center, RingCentral, 8x8, Genesys Cloud, a connected Twilio account, or a carrier or PBX over SIP. Synthflow runs its own telephony, or uses your carrier.
How do we change the trigger list?
Escalation triggers and the decisions reserved for people are configuration your compliance team controls and versions. Each decision is logged with the policy version in force, so an auditor sees which list applied to each call.
Read next
- Best AI voice agents for debt collection in 2026: eleven ranked, side by side.
- AI debt collection: how it works and what it recovers: the studies, and a pilot on your own accounts.
- A US branch-based lender measured Vector against its own collectors: the one week snapshot in full.
- Debt collection compliance for lenders: the federal and state rules.
- Automated debt collection calls and Synthflow with Five9.
Book a Vector demo with one portfolio segment, and see the handoff work on your own accounts.
Sources read on 15 Nov 2026.
