Summary
"Traditionally, collection agencies have limited consumer payment options to cash, cashier's checks and money orders," said Bonnie Finley, vice president of specialized sales for the collection industry at EFT Network in Hawthorne, N.Y. "The emergence of electronic payment technologies has helped payment processing companies assist agencies in providing a variety of electronic payment options to consumers-simplifying their payment process while dramatically increasing recovery rates and procedural efficiency."
"There may be a minimum payment that is acceptable for each consumer, for example," [Jennifer Brummett] said. "Sometimes a debtor may have multiple debts they have to apply payment for. We work with clients to customize their debt negotiation suite to offer the opportunity to settle that payment or settle with a payment plan based upon the debtor's profile and each individual client.""I've heard of several agencies that went looking for a payment processing company, but the salesperson for that company never communicated with the agency that there would be a problem with them being a collection agency," [Gary Adams] said. "I've had agencies come to me who have been underwritten, approved and processed, and only then did the payment processor realize what they do and cut them off because they don't work with collection agencies. And when that happens, either the processor or Visa and Mastercard may not only terminate the agency's account, but they may blacklist the agency so it can't ever acquire a merchant account again."See the full content of this document
Extract
The Speed of Automation
As consumers hunker down to weather the turbulent economy and collection professionals struggle to improve or even just maintain current recovery rates, the last thing agency owners want to worry about is how long it will take to process payments once consumers agree to settle their accounts. Automating the collection process from start to finish can save collection agencies both time and money, and payment processing products increasingly play a big part in that effort.
Payment processing companies can help streamline collection agency functions by eliminating many of the manual work involved in the payment process and allowing agencies to offer multiple payment options to consumers. Checks, debit card payments and credit card payments can be taken over the telephone, Internet or...See the full content of this document
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