The old saying has it that when the US sneezes, the UK catches a cold. The phrase is often deployed in the context of economics, but is equally apt to describe the UK’s general habit of embracing US cultural exports, from hoola-hoops to hamburgers, Mickey Mouse to mortgage-backed securities, and Coca-Cola to mass market collections.
While we already had a collections industry in the UK before Coca-Cola arrived, it was never on the scale of its counterpart across the Atlantic: a recent report from the Federal Reserve (August 2013) calculated there is $2.8trn ($2,800,000,000,000) in non-mortgage consumer receivables outstanding at any time in the US.
Nevertheless, given its size and infl uence, it’s historically the case that issues and practises in the US collections industry tend to be replicated – or at least provide a learning opportunity – for the UK.
To find out what’s coming next, Credit Today spoke with Jan Stieger, executive director of California-based DBA International, the non-profit trade association acting as a voice for the American debt purchase industry.