Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has released its latest report which shows that it has dealt with around 3,300 inquiries about debt collection and took on over 1,000 new complaints for investigation in 2018. The complaints cover credit and consumer loans, such as mortgages, credit cards and personal or business loans. They don’t include household debts…
Read more
Debt Purchaser Lowell has delivered the first part of a UK digital transformation programme with the ‘go-live’ of a new consumer website for its Lowell Financial brand. The new website sees significant changes to the existing customer portal both in terms of design and usability – with more to come. The site, which has been…
Read more
The Credit Services Association (CSA), the voice of the UK debt collection and debt purchase industries, has appointed Henry Aitchison, a former senior executive with the FCA and OFT, to the newly-created role of Head of Policy. Aitchison, who has a career spanning almost 20 years in consumer credit, will have a broad role supporting…
Read moreThe European non-performing loan (NPL) market reached a new peak in 2018 with disposals totalling EUR 205.2bn in gross book value (GBV), according to the new European NPL FY 2018 report, published by Debtwire ABS. Debtwire NPL Database tracked 142 transactions. The last quarter saw a particularly intense pace of activity, given that at the…
Read more
A new industry careers site for the credit industry and collections industry has been launched by Credit Connect Media. The website is a careers platform which aims to connect the UK’s top credit and collections industry talent with the best career options. Credit-connection.co.uk is an industry careers website sharing the latest job vacancies and a training course…
Read more
Intrum has agreed a deal with Spanish bank Ibercaja Banco S.A. to purchase a portfolio of 6,400 real estate assets (REOs). The portfolio will be transferred to a new company (NewCo), initially majority owned by Intrum, with Residencial Murillo maintaining a minority equity stake. Intrum’s final investment will be approximately €30-40m once financing and co-investor are…
Read more
The latest European Consumer Payment Report from European credit management firm Intrum presents a worrying picture when it comes to rising indebtedness and the ability of consumers to meet their financial obligations. Over 1,000 UK consumers took part in the survey of more than 24,000 Europeans. While more and more people are able to save…
Read more
Intrum has announced it has reached an agreement with Spanish bank Banco Sabadell to acquire their wholly owned subsidiary Solvia Servicios Inmobiliaros (Solvia) for an enterprise value of approximately €300 million. The agreement reinforces Intrum’s position in the Spanish real estate market and strengthens the collaboration with Banco Sabadell, one of the largest banks in Spain.…
Read more
The Bank of England has published its latest mortgage lenders and administrators return (MLAR) is a quarterly statistical release aggregated from data on mortgage lending activities provided by around 340 regulated mortgage lenders and administrators. The figures show that the value of outstanding mortgage balances with some arrears increased for the first time since 2016…
Read more
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published findings on how mortgage lenders treat customers who have long-term mortgage arrears and provide forbearance to affected customers. The FCA had previously identified that there was a trend of increasing long-term arrears cases, whilst the number of homes being repossessed had been falling. As a result of this…
Read more
KBC Bank of Ireland has completed the sale of €1.9 billion worth of mostly non-performing buy-to-let and corporate loans that were held by its Irish unit, to Goldman Sachs. The sale, first announced in August, will have a positive impact on KBC’s profit and loss account. It will reduce KBC’s non-performing loan ratio, according to…
Read more
European credit management specialist Intrum and Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo have finalised a strategic agreement to create market-leading servicer of non-performing loans (NPL) in Italy. The agreement creates an establishment of a market leading servicer of non-performing loans (NPLs) in Italy. The servicing platform, Intrum Italy, is majority owned by Intrum with Intesa Sanpaolo retaining…
Read more
Irish bank, Permanent TSB (PTSB) has announced that it has agreed to sell a 1.3 billion euro portfolio of problem mortgage loans in a securitisation deal, to help reduce its bad debt level to below 10 percent. PTSB has been trying to reduce its exposure to non-performing loans (NPLs) and focus on providing services for…
Read more