One such Qire customer, Severn Trent, the water utility firm, recovered £3 million in unpaid bills in the last six months through Qire which automatically called people that owe it money. Severn Trent uses the system to recover funds from accounts which have not yet paid up. The system dials the bill payer and after confirming their identity transfers them to an agent with no charge. The system has sent 176,000 messages to customers in arrears since it was deployed seven months ago, recovering £ 3 million. The use of the system has also increased the value of repayments customers are making.  One of the main benefits of the software is that it provides a cost-free call for the customer, which was welcomed by regulators and customer support groups.

A New York firm, DebtResolve, is targeting the $48 billion of US credit card debt which is thought to be in default. DebtResolve's mantra is "resolve your debt with dignity". They provide an internet solution where people can log on and make a bid to settle their credit card debt in the privacy of their own homes at 3 o'clock in the  morning. Apollo Enterprise is another player in the space of advanced web-based payments and collections systems.

WorldPay founder Nick Ogden brings both voice technology and the payments sector together in his Voice Commerce Group. Hiss vision is that Voice Biometric authentication will transform financial services. By pinpointing the location of a transaction and using the unique identifier of your voice, Ogden's group can significantly reduce fraud. Last November, Dell Internet Solutions Group announced a wide-ranging partnership to roll-out voice management hubs with the Voice Commerce Group in order  to enable multi-factor transaction approvals for payments.

Voice is the final frontier, and all communications and transactions which are being done without voice will be done with it integrated over the next decade as UK success stories SpinVox, Qire and Voice Commerce Group continue their march into the mainstream.

The success of DebtResolve and Apollo Enterprise and other companies like them which are enabling individuals to manage their finances better via the web - self-settling debt, self-curing of aggressive debt positions - will force banks to become more customer-centric. Gone will be the five day dead zones where banks use our money between transfers and checks clearing. New lenders like Zopa stand to gain ground.

Once again, as technology advances, we all win.