Director of Consumer Collections

At Community Financial System, Inc. (CFSI), we are dedicated to providing our customers with friendly, personalized, high-quality financial services and products. Our retail division, Community Bank, N.A., operates more than 200 customer facilities across Upstate New York, Northeastern Pennsylvania, Vermont and Western Massachusetts. Beyond retail banking, we also offer commercial banking, wealth management, investment management, insurance and risk management, and benefit plan administration.

Just as our employees are committed to helping our customers manage their finances, we’re committed to our employees. After all, they make it happen for our customers every day.

To ensure our people can enjoy long and successful careers here at CFSI, we offer competitive compensation, great benefits, and professional development and advancement opportunities. As an equal-opportunity workplace and affirmative-action employer, we celebrate and support a diverse workplace for the benefit of all: our employees, customers and communities.

The Director of Consumer Collections is responsible for leading the strategic direction, operational performance, and regulatory compliance of the Consumer Collections function. This role oversees all stages of delinquency management, loss mitigation, foreclosure, repossession, recovery, and collections operations across consumer loan portfolios, including residential mortgages, home equity loans, auto loans, and other retail lending products. The Director develops and executes collection strategies that minimize credit losses, support borrowers experiencing financial hardship, optimize customer experience, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and organizational risk appetite.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Develop and execute comprehensive collections strategies across consumer loan portfolios.
• Establish short- and long-term objectives aligned with organizational goals, portfolio performance expectations, and risk management standards.
• Lead initiatives to improve delinquency performance, reduce losses, increase recoveries, and enhance customer engagement.
• Evaluate technological solutions, including AI, to create efficiencies, modernize workflow and ensure compliance with regulations and guidelines as they pertain to collections in the consumer loan portfolios.
• Collaborate with Credit Risk, Lending, Mortgage Servicing, Accounting, Compliance and Operations to optimize portfolio performance.

• Oversee all aspects of consumer collections, including delinquency management, loss mitigation, repossessions, sale of collateral, foreclosures, ORE, recovery, and charge-off activities.
• Develop and implement collection strategies tailored to specific consumer lending products.
• Oversee repossession and recovery activities for delinquent auto loans.
• Ensure consistent execution of collection policies, procedures, and customer treatment standards.
• Monitor delinquency trends, loss performance, and recovery results across consumer loan portfolios.
• Partner with Consumer Lending and Credit Risk to recommend policy and underwriting changes.
• Monitor collection productivity, staffing levels, and operational effectiveness.
• Implement process improvements and technology solutions.

• Ensure compliance with investor, insurer, and regulatory servicing and collection requirements.
• Monitor portfolio performance related to delinquency, repossession activity, foreclosure activity, loss severity, recovery performance, and cure rates.
• Partner with Mortgage Servicing, Consumer Lending and external vendors to manage foreclosure, repossession, recovery, and liquidation activities.
• Evaluate emerging risks across consumer lending portfolios and implement strategies to address changing conditions.

• Ensure compliance with FDCPA, FCRA, TCPA, RESPA, TILA, CFPB requirements, UDAAP standards, and applicable state regulations.
• Maintain strong internal controls, quality assurance practices, and audit readiness.
• Partner with Compliance and other areas of the Bank to address regulatory changes and examination findings.

• Manage relationships with third-party collection agencies, attorneys, repossession agents, property preservation vendors, skip-tracing providers, and recovery partners.
• Establish performance standards, service-level agreements, and…