What will you remember about 2019? That was the question I put to a number of industry experts and professionals yesterday, asking them to share their thoughts about the trend or issue that had the greatest impact on the industry during the past 12 months. Here are how those individuals answered. Feel free to share your thoughts by submitting a comment.
On Thursday, we’ll share projections and predictions from more people about what they think the biggest trend will be in 2020. Stay tuned and Happy New Year!
Tim Collins, General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer, TrueAccord
How can we not mention the new debt collection rule and the technological advancement it potentially unleashes. It is just in time, too, with the fall of phone call effectiveness. Those agencies that are willing to embrace more uncertainty now and are willing to use new communication channels and new technologies will struggle in 2020 but have the potential to thrive after that. Those that wait for certainty from the new rule will most likely not survive, or if they do so, it will be because they were acquired.
Stefanie Jackman, Partner, Ballard Spahr
In my view, the CFPB’s proposed collection rule was by far the most significant development in 2019. It previews the seismic shift that the credit and collection industry must make (and already is making) regarding how it engages with consumers to resolve their debts. Hopefully, as we move forward towards publication of the final rule in 2020, the CFPB will make every effort to ensure that its stated goals of providing clarity and certainty through this rulemaking is realized in a clear, comprehensive final rule, broad safe harbors, and detailed commentary.
Jeff DiMatteo, Owner/Partner, American Profit Recovery
After years in the making, we finally got our eyes and ears on what the CFPB is thinking. It is evident that the CFPB heard the industries concerns and hopefully will implement most of the proposed rules that would clarify many gray areas in collections. Much time was spent in 2019 in preparation for these laws, so that the industry will be ready pull the trigger on the changes.
Brian Watkins, Owner, Southern Oregon Credit Service
The announcement of debt collection rules by the CFPB were significantly different in scope than they might have been under previous Directors, so the new leadership cannot be undersold in bringing more balance to the process. The inclusion of “unwanted” calls made for a quick and dramatic change in understanding of how significant this legislation and any new rules could be, sweeping up millions of calls consumers would not have otherwise rejected. Both of these topics will continue to impact large and small players in the credit and collection cycle for years to come.
Mike Frost, Partner, Malone Frost Martin
The trend or movement of communications from traditional snail mail and outbound dialing to electronic forms of communications and the utilization of machine learning for strategy based processes and consumer communications. This past year there has been expansive development specifically on the text messaging and machine learning fronts. Utilization of these new technologies has provided a completely different outlook on workforce management and consumer interaction efficiencies.
Michael Lamm, Partner, Corporate Advisory Solutions
This was a monumental year for the industry from a regulatory perspective. The CFPB proposed rules to modernize the debt collection industry stood out in my mind. We have been waiting for over 40 years for updated rules. Even though the proposed rules were not perfect they were more balanced than I thought they would be. These new rules, where the industry will be allowed to utilize email/text is a “game changer ‘and will help the industry and the consumer have an additional communication channel to make the collection process more efficient and effective. Excited to see whether the rules get enacted before the Presidential Election in November!
Gordon Beck, President & Chief Operating Officer, Valor Intelligent Processing
I believe that the call blocking technology as well as the black lists created by the service providers became a massive issue in 2019 primarily due to the uncertainty as to how to prevent your numbers from being blocked, how to switch up your caller id packages to keep your phone numbers fresh in the eyes of the providers and how to determine when your numbers are being blocked. Being able to generate RPC’s is already difficult as it is and this new process of marking numbers as “Spam Likely” has wreaked havoc across the industry, especially for the late adopters of fail-safe methods to preserve their caller-id numbers. This is not just a 2019 issue, but it became prevalent this past year which is why I believe this had the greatest impact in our industry last year.
Aaron Reiter, Director of Marketing, National Accounts, InterProse
I think the biggest impact has been the rapid growth of technology solutions available to debt recovery agencies and departments coupled with the rapid shift in acceptance among business owners. In 2019, we saw a big change in frame of mind and adoption of new communication channels, machine learning technology applications, and cloud computing. Hopefully the hinted changes in regulatory guidance will help further this trend by providing clarity to everyone.
