Collections & Credit Risk articles from September 2005

Collections & Credit Risk archives from September 2005

Deals Getting Done M&A Activity Picks Up.
September 1, 2005... After a slow start in the first few months of this year, merger and acquisition activity in the collections industry heated up in the second quarter. And in July and early August, a rash of deals were announced. (See this month's cover story,...

Letters To The Editor.(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2005... Public Pressure To the Editor: I think that the number of bills proposed will create a significant amount of confusion among legislators - as every issue does with that group - but the legislators will be feeling the public's anxiety,...

Survey Results.
September 1, 2005... Here's how visitors to Credit & Collections World, Collections & Credit Risk's Web site, voted on this month's Instant Survey: Legislators have been discussing new laws to govern the data brokerage industry for several months. Do you...

Credit for the Underserved.
September 1, 2005... Credit is the key to opportunity - the chance to buy a home or start a business, for example. Yet for an estimated 35 million to 50 million Americans the door is tightly barred. That's because they have little or no traditional credit history....

What's New.
September 1, 2005... TU Tackles Skimming TransUnion, a Chicago-based global information provider, is fighting back against an industry problem known as skimming, which most often involves a retail or restaurant employee swiping a credit card through a small,...

Events Calendar.
September 1, 2005... Sept. 9 Collections 2005 The California Commercial Collection Association LOS ANGELES www.clla.org Sept. 12-14 Call Center Conference The AVAYA Predictive Dialer User Group (Open to non-Avaya users....

PRA Acquires Alatax.(Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc., Creditors Interchange acquires Abrams & Swartz Inc., Columbia Ultimate acquires RevQ)
September 1, 2005... Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc., a Norfolk, Va.-based bad debt buyer, has acquired substantially all the assets of Birmingham, Ala.-based Alatax Inc., a government collections firm, for $17.5 million. * HSBC Finance Corp., Prospect...

IT Overseas: Collections agencies with facilities abroad grapple with how best to configure their technology systems to manage far-flung operations.
September 1, 2005... When Astra Business Services set up shop in March 2004, its business plan was to handle Stateside collections from a call center in Gurgaon, India. But implementing that plan meant making tough decisions about where to put crucial pieces of...

Acquiring Minds: The biggest news in M&A deals so far this year is the intended marriage of two of the country's top five collections firms. Still, most deals today are a far cry from the flawed, quick-growth strategy of the 1990s.
September 1, 2005... Collections and credit companies chasing growth - through acquisitions, maybe a merger - must feel like date seekers on match.com: plenty of potential partners; few qualifying as marriage material. Yet suitors are queuing up to the $15...

Hiring Outlook: As the role of credit and collections evolves, what skills and traits are firms looking for in new employees? And what steps are they taking to find candidates who have them?
September 1, 2005... Finding the right job candidate is not always a "by the numbers" process. And there's no one way to do it. But whatever the current method used, indications are it is likely to be employed more often. Recent research points to an uptick in...

Pricing Bubble: RealityorMyth?: Concern about high debt prices is in the air, and some industry insiders expect a pricing collapse. But these debt brokers have a different take on the situation.
September 1, 2005... It's no secret to anyone in the debt-sales market that portfolio prices have been on the rise. Steeply, in fact. (See "Bad Debt's Mind Games," CCR April.) Reported prices for some asset categories have more than doubled over the past 24 months....

Call Centers Tighten the Reins: Financial institutions are under pressure to make sure they take every possible precaution to stop security leaks and database hackings. Are the call centers they use doing enough to protect the data they have and how are new technologies helping?
September 1, 2005... In the financial services world, 2005 is the Year of the Security Breach. Turn to the national television news and watch the latest reports about credit cardholders placed at risk by a skilled hacker. Open the Wall Street Journal and read the...

Call Centers & Predictive Dialers.
September 1, 2005... Company Advanced Call Center Technologies Access! Corp. AllianceOne Amcat APAC Customer Services Apropos Avaya Call One Inc. Calltrol Corp. Castel Corp. Centermark Technologies Inc. ...

QAs Call Center: Leading industry product and services providers discuss call center strategies and best practices.
September 1, 2005... Q: What product enhancements have been made to insure that contact is made/can be made despite the widespread use of caller ID, phone company privacy services and cell phones as a primary phone? Larry Mark, SER Solutions, Inc.: To aid...

Advertising and Service Contacts for Collections & Credit Risk and Credit & Collections World.(Directory)
September 1, 2005... ADVERTISING Western Sales Manager Brenda Schultheis 300 South Wacker Drive, Suite 1800 Chicago, Illinois 60606 Brenda.SchultheisSourceMedia.com (847) 251-1588 Fax: (847) 251-0887 Eastern Sales Manager ...

ChoicePoint Weathers the Storm.
September 1, 2005... This March, ChoicePoint found itself in the position no business seeks - having its name splashed on the front page of newspapers across the country for a massive security breach that resulted in information on more than 145,000 consumers being...