Collections & Credit Risk articles from February 2003

Collections & Credit Risk archives from February 2003

Is It Deja Vu All Over Again? Investors Return to the Distressed Debt Market.(Editorial)
February 1, 2003... As industry leaders gather for the 6th Annual Debt Buyers' Association Conference in Las Vegas Feb. 9 - 11, they face an interesting challenge: How to calm debt markets despite a growing supply of distressed-debt portfolios and the influx of...

Letters to the Editor.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2003... Target Tax Cuts To the Editor: Tax cuts for the upper income brackets do little to stimulate the economy, but a lot to increase the deficit. With the increased defense costs, plus any funding for the Homeland Security Department, the United...

Survey Results.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Here's how visitors to Credit & Collections World, Collections & Credit Risk's website, voted on this month's Instant Survey: When the new Congress convenes, the White House is expected to propose an economic-stimulus plan that includes...

Round 4 for Bankruptcy Reform?
February 1, 2003... History certainly repeats itself where bankruptcy reform is concerned. Legislation has been on the table for the past three congressional sessions but still hasn't become law. Despite some rumblings that financial community backers might...

WHAT'S NEW?
February 1, 2003... Skip Locator Beefed Up Experian's Skip Locator service, designed to help in-house collection departments, collections agencies, and credit grantors locate hard-to-reach debtors, now includes four new triggers - new telephone numbers,...

D&B Aims To Buy Hoover's.
February 1, 2003... D&B plans to buy Hoover's, the Austin, Texas-based provider of industry and market intelligence on public and private firms. Hoover's Online, its fastest-growing unit, offers a subscription-based, proprietary, editorial database on more than...

E-Biz: Recovery Goes Online: Creditors are embracing Internet-based recovery applications as a way to add more muscle to collections efforts, while keeping the lid on costs.
February 1, 2003... The war room of today's collections managers, the buzzwords are efficiency, expediency, and cost control. The emphasis on these three points comes from economic belt tightening and collections entering the Internet age. No longer able...

Intangibles: Assets To Count In Net Worth?: We can't see, smell, or touch them, but are intangibles immaterial in calculating a company's net worth - or do they deserve more credit?
February 1, 2003... Credit managers find it difficult to wrap their arms around intangibles, an amorphous group of items that might be worth something - or nothing at all. So traditionally the most common response among credit executives has been simply to deduct...

To Deduct or Not, That Is the Question.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... D&B has developed an itemized list of intangibles that are generally excluded in calculating a company's net worth, and those that are not. (See page 26.) To be included in a company's net worth, an asset should meet the following property...

Intangibles Deducted.
February 1, 2003... Bond Discount Capital Stock Subscriptions Covenant Not to Compete Debt Discounts Deferred Membership Charges Excess Cost of Assets Acquired (Goodwill)* Market Development Costs Organization Expense Policy...

Intangibles Not Deducted.
February 1, 2003... Blast Furnace Reline Costs (Steel Industry) Brands, Trademarks Broadcasting Rights Catalog Costs Computer Software Contract Rights Customer Lists Credit Information Files Dealer Network Costs ...

FleetBoston's Treasury Management: At FleetBoston, treasury customers are in the driver's seat. So how does the bank steer a steady course?
February 1, 2003... That do our customers want?" FleetBoston Financial Corp. has made that question a point of differentiation as it directs technology decisions. By repeatedly asking about customer preferences, the regional wholesale bank saw three distinct...

Debt Sales Market: Blue Skies Ahead?: As investors return to the market and new classes emerge, debt buyers hope for a bountiful 2003. But some veterans warn against repeating past mistakes.
February 1, 2003... Investors blew into the debt-sales market in the second half of 2002, a promising sign that the dark clouds hanging over the industry for the past two years finally are going to clear out. The biggest break in the clouds came in November, when...

Lifecycle Scoring Boosts Bottom Line: Scoring a new applicant for risk is just the beginning. To achieve maximum benefit from the customer relationship, and minimize risk, utilities should make scoring an ongoing process.
February 1, 2003... The business of business concerns the future and relies on predictions that are made every day. Predictions about future inventories, revenues, and receivables are the basis for today's decisions. With regulators, shareholders, auditors, and...

Credit & Collections: A Global Perspective: In these economically challenging times, how should credit grantors modify their strategies to keep financially fit in various parts of the world?
February 1, 2003... Sorting out where credit opportunities lie in the world economy today can be as difficult as trying to read tea leaves when you're a bean counter by profession. It's been a brutal period, with virtually all economies taking a hit in this...

Electronic Smarts.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... One way companies are keeping pace with the vicissitudes of international trade is by using electronic transactions, and TradeCard Inc. is one such service provider in the financial supply chain. Its client list includes such companies as...

Letting Consumers Know the Score and More: Credit bureaus have begun focusing on the consumer as a customer. Will the transition boost their bottom line?
February 1, 2003... Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, once thought of consumers only as subjects to be reported on. But that has changed, and now all three major consumer credit bureaus are focusing on consumers as customers - selling consumers credit information...

How High Can a Roof Beam Rise?
February 1, 2003... Home-equity lending is soaring, and home-equity lines of credit represent one of the strongest growth opportunities in consumer banking today. But as loan utilization rises, what will happen to creditworthiness? Record low interest rates,...

Making the Right Collections Calls: Action-specific modeling helps firms collect more delinquent dollars than traditional behavioral scoring.
February 1, 2003... Traditional behavioral scoring has filled the bill for many years by providing a basis for making decisions about which delinquent accounts to call. But with millions of dollars in uncollected delinquent dollars, many financial institutions are...