UK Debt Collectors? Workload Triples

The amount of debt referred to United Kingdom debt collectors has tripled in the past six years, and the amount of debt purchased by UK collectors has doubled in the past two years, according to a report by the Credit Services Association (CSA).

The CSA, the largest collector association in the UK, said in its report, Inside the Industry 2007, that $42 billion in debt cases have been referred to UK collection agencies in the past 6 years.  In the past year alone, more than 20 million separate accounts were worked.  In addition, $12 billion in face value accounts have been bought by debt purchasers in the UK in the past two years.

The head of the CSA, Godfrey Lancashire, told UK newspaper The Sunday Times that the large rise in debt purchasing was becoming a theme. “Traditionally the work was on a commission basis — the collector would keep 25% to 30% of the debt if they were able to collect it. Now the growing trend is for the lender, which is normally a financial institution, to sell the debt to the collection company,” Lancashire told The Times.

The CSA was created in 1988 through the mergers of two prominent collector and trade protection associations in the UK.  The association represents some 290 collection agencies working in the UK.