The UK’s Demand for highly-skilled debt collection specialists in the consumer industry has surged by almost 56% in the last year, according to specialist financial services recruitment firm BrightPool.
Following increased pressure from the Financial Conduct Authority for businesses to improve their standards, BrightPool’s survey has shown that rates for collections and recovery compliance specialists at a manager level have increased by as much as 21%
Temporary collections advisers have also seen day rates increase up to 26%, Meanwhile, base salaries for senior staff have increased by 8%. These figures are associated mainly with the Consumer and blue chip debt collection sector which is continuing to see marginal growth.
In a press statement Angela Hickmore, managing director at BrightPool, said: “There is a big shift taking place, with firms professionalising their standards by implementing new systems and controls, and making sure there is a clear audit trail to document their approach to a recovery.”
Since the FCA took over the regulation of the consumer credit businesses from the Office of Fair Trading in April payday lenders, non-bank lenders and other outsourced providers of debt collection services are now accountable to its regulations on consumer credit.
There are well over 350 Debt Collection Agencies in the UK today, this figure has dropped by around 15-20% on the number of Debt Collection Agencies 2-3 years ago.
There are many different categories within the Debt Collection industry from Commercial to Consumer and global Debt Recovery services.
We asked leading Private Debt Collection firm Frontline Collections to review this story and they said “We haven’t experienced major growth in the past 2 years and certainly not in line with the figures quoted by Brightpool. ”
They continued “We assume these figures to relate more to the call centre based collection agencies were automated diallers are used and they service the requirements of the utility companies, mobile phone sectors etc so operate en mass as opposed to managing cases and claims”
In this particular instance, the term specialised would appear to relate to the particular collection agent’s knowledge of the new FCA guidelines as opposed to industry knowledge which is so critical to commercial and private debt collection markets.