How to get hired
Collections is split by how late the borrower is and how the lender reaches them. Each split is a different job.
Tele-collection (early buckets)
When an EMI is a few days to a month late, a caller reminds the borrower, explains charges and takes a promise to pay. These roles sit in lender call centres or outsourced partners, take 12th pass and graduate candidates, and test your Hindi, English or regional language on a call. If you have done telecalling or customer service, this is the easiest move in. Calls are recorded and checked for tone and script.
Field collection
For accounts one to three months late (lenders call these buckets, counted in days past due), a field executive visits the borrower at home or at work. Titles include "Collection Associate – CV", "Collections Executive – Retail MFB" and "Executive – Debt Management Services – Rural". You need a two-wheeler and licence, local knowledge, and a calm temper. Microfinance and commercial vehicle collections are the most travel-heavy.
Recovery and legal collections
After 90 days past due a loan usually becomes a non-performing asset, and the work shifts to settlements, repossession of vehicles, notices under SARFAESI for secured loans, cheque-bounce cases, arbitration and Lok Adalat. "Area Recovery Manager" and legal collections roles want a few years of collections or an LLB.
The DRA certificate
RBI has long asked banks and NBFCs to use only recovery agents who have trained and passed the Indian Institute of Banking and Finance's Debt Recovery Agent exam, and many lenders ask their in-house staff for it too. The current IIBF rules:
- Minimum 10th pass and 18 years old.
- Training at an IIBF-accredited institute or a lender's training centre: 100 hours if you are below graduation, 50 hours if you are a graduate.
- An online objective exam; the pass mark is 50 out of 100.
- Fee of ₹1,200 plus GST per attempt.
- Three attempts within nine months of finishing training, after which you must retrain.
Check the IIBF site for exam dates before you enrol, and get the certificate before an interview if you can: it moves you ahead of uncertified candidates.
The new RBI conduct rules
RBI issued final amendment directions on recovery of loans and recovery agents on 6 August 2026, in force from 1 January 2027 for banks, NBFCs, housing finance companies and co-operative banks. As summarised by legal and news reports, they allow calls and visits only between 8 am and 7 pm unless the borrower asks for another time, require agents to carry authorisation and identify themselves, require recovery calls to be recorded, bar contacting a borrower's family, friends or colleagues about the debt, and bar visits during bereavement or medical emergencies. Lenders stay responsible for what their agencies do. Interviewers will increasingly test you on this, so read the directions, linked from RBI's press release.
Moving up
Collection executive, then collection officer or team leader, then collection manager for a branch or product, then area and regional collections manager. Strong field collectors also move into risk containment and fraud investigation teams.
What a collections month looks like
The month runs on "resolution" targets: how many accounts in your bucket you bring back to current, and how much overdue money you recover. Incentives are tied to these, so pay swings. The first ten days of the month are the busiest, when EMIs bounce and the new list arrives.
The work is emotionally heavy. You will meet borrowers who lost a job, a crop or a family member. The collectors who last are firm about the amount and polite about everything else, and they write down every promise and visit in the app the same day. A single complaint of harassment can end a career, so stay inside the rules even when your manager pushes for numbers.