Collections & Credit Risk articles from October 2004

Collections & Credit Risk archives from October 2004

Strategic Thinking : Card Collections Front And Center.(Credit Card Collections conference)
October 1, 2004... October brings more than crisp fall days. It's the time for our annual Credit Card Collections conference. This year is the 13th such gathering, and it's being held in Phoenix Oct. 20 - 22. The theme: "Fine Tune Your Business Practices for a...

Letters To The Editor.(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... Healthcare Fraud To the Editor: Patient ID and insurance ID's being used by illegal aliens to obtain healthcare in border hospitals have cost our company in excess of $2 million this year alone. Ron Vaughan, Director Payor...

Survey Results.(Credit & Collections World, Collections & Credit Risk's website survey)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Here's how visitors to Credit & Collections World, Collections & Credit Risk's website, voted on this month's Instant Survey: There's been a lot of talk and concern about the rising cost of fraud and ID theft for victims and credit...

Outlook Bright for Debt-Sales Industry After Recent Slowdown, Analyst Reports.
October 1, 2004... The growth in debt purchasing volumes by the six public companies that buy and recover bad debt is expected to drive up valuations on stocks and bode well for the debt-sales industry, says Joseph B. Chumbler, an analyst with Stephens Inc., an...

Counseling Changes Pushed To Avoid Bankruptcy Boom.(Consumers for Responsible Credit Solutions)
October 1, 2004... Unless Congress changes laws regulating the credit-counseling business, there could be a bankruptcy explosion coming, a national consumer advocacy group warns. Consumers for Responsible Credit Solutions says that without the counseling...

What's New.(insite collections, valeo, falcon ID)
October 1, 2004... Incurrent's New Online Collections Product Incurrent, a Parsippany, N.J.-based company that provides products for the credit card industry, releases InSite Collections - an online collections application. InSite Collections can integrate...

Rosenthal Act Changes May Harm Creditors, Attorneys.(California Rosenthal Fair Debt Collections Practices Act)
October 1, 2004... A new provision to the California Rosenthal Fair Debt Collections Practices Act about a written notice collectors must provide when first communicating with debtors is raising fears about the impact the law may have on two groups not usually...

Study: Credit Unions Can Benefit From Portfolio Sales.
October 1, 2004... Although many credit unions harbor doubts about the benefits of selling their credit card portfolios, a study by Asset Exchange, a Portland, Ore.-based credit card brokerage firm for financial institutions, hopes to convince them it's good...

Concerto Buys Rockwell.(mergers and acquisitions)(Concerto Software, Rockwell FirstPoint Contact)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Concerto Software, a contact center solutions provider, acquired Rockwell FirstPoint Contact from Rockwell Automation Inc. Terms were not disclosed. The company will continue to be headquartered in Westford, Mass., and will have more than 1,000...

Building A Better Database: Financial firms are finding that databases built with a silo architecture restrict data flow and hinder efforts to ease risk and recovery of dollars owed. To fix this, vendors are creating bridge applications.
October 1, 2004... Ask a risk manager or head of collections for an opinion about data warehouses and they're likely to say that they have a love-hate relationship with the technology. There's little doubt that data warehouses, if properly built and used,...

Fine Tuning Business Practices for a Changing Environment.(Annual Credit Card Collections Conference)(Calendar)
October 1, 2004... The agenda for the 13th Annual Credit Card Collections Conference, being held in Phoenix on October 20, 21, and 22 this year, is packed with timely topics. Presentations from leading practitioners will cover a variety of pressing issues,...

Exhibitors.
October 1, 2004... Among the vendors and consultants exhibiting at the conference, will be: AACA Aargon Collection Agency Absolute Resolutions Academy Collection Service Accelerated Data Systems ACCESS! Corp. Account Solutions...

Discount Dilemma: Collecting from the Uninsured: With pressure from lawsuits mounting and bad debt ballooning, hospitals are struggling with ways to collect from patients not poor enough to qualify for charity care, but not well enough off to pay for hefty medical care costs.
October 1, 2004... If it were possible to take the collective blood pressure of U.S. hospitals' boards of directors these days, their systolic/diastolic readings probably would be off the charts. The financial squeeze pressuring the U.S. healthcare system,...

Small Claims Court: A Secret Collections Weapon?: Filing a claim in small claims court can be effective, but a favorable judgment is no guarantee of payment. Still, some debtors pay before the case is heard and, in any case, filing lets other debtors know you mean business.
October 1, 2004... About 50% of the time that she files papers and someone is served, Carol Frischer ends up getting paid right on the spot. Frischer is credit and collections manager for Holthouse, Carlin & Van Trigt, Certified Public Accountants, Santa Monica,...

Breaking Out of "Boom & Bust" Lending: Deploying capital below reasonable rates of return and hoping for low credit losses is not a wise long-term approach. For financial institutions chasing yield, what strategy makes sense?(lending strategy)
October 1, 2004... North American banks are emerging from one of the most difficult credit cycles in recent memory, having faced corporate default rates that exceeded those recorded in the early 1990s. Have banks learned anything from this experience and have...

NARCA Fall Conference.(National Association of Retail Collections Attorneys)(Calendar)
October 1, 2004... Wednesday, October 13, 2004 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm NARCA Board of Directors Meeting (open to all NARCA members) 9:00 pm - 11:00 pm Hospitality Suite Sponsored by Capital One Corp. Thursday, October 14, 2004 8:00 am -...

Exhibitors.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Access! Corporation Accurint American Alliance of Creditor Attorneys (AACA) American Legal Process, Inc. BSI eSolutions Cal-West Mortgage Collection Advisor Magazine Collins Financial Services, Inc. ...

The Compliance Burden Grows: Recent changes to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act have complicated compliance matters even further for the already heavily regulated debt collections industry. What are collectors doing to comply with conflicting regulations in the TCPA and the FDCPA?
October 1, 2004... Complying with the maze of state and federal regulations is enough of a challenge for the debt collection industry, so it's even more troubling when conflicting federal regulations are added to the mix. Nowadays it is particularly difficult for...

The Art of The Deal: The debt-sales industry thrives on good relations between buyers and sellers. How do companies dealing in bad debt keep deal-making positive?(preventing bad-debts)
October 1, 2004... In the debt-sales industry, a growth business where up to $100 billion in bad loans trade yearly, some deals are bound to go wrong. Disputes are part of the business. How companies choose to resolve them is key to the industry's long-term...

Fear the Regulators?(debt sales regulation)
October 1, 2004... When Capital Acquisitions and Management Co. tangled with the Federal Trade Commission this year, it rekindled fears that the government one day will attempt to regulate the debt-sales industry. The FTC charged the Rockford, Ill.-based debt...

Back to the Future: Government regulations, particularly ones dealing with call abandonment rates, threaten to reduce agent productivity.(call center industry)
October 1, 2004... It's amazing to look back and see the technological progress that has been made by the call center industry. In the early 1980s, while paper records were being replaced by "online inventory systems," the science of telephony was being pushed to...

Houses, Jobs, and the Home Equity Bubble: Home equity loans and lines of credit help unlock housing gains and boost spending, but when wages fail to keep pace, the burden of the additional monthly payment can slow spending.
October 1, 2004... The latest data from the National Association of Realtors and the Census Bureau indicate a slowdown in housing market activity. A significant increase in home prices in many areas has occurred while mortgage rates have ceased declining. The...

Commercial Indices Continue To Trend Up.
October 1, 2004... Key indicators in the second quarter of 2004 improved across the board for commercial credit grantors responding to the Credit Research Foundation's National Summary of Domestic Trade Receivables. At 81.35, the Collections Effectiveness Index,...