Telecommunications, Cable & Utilities

Case Study: Knowing When To Pull the Debt Collection Trigger

Contact information such as phone numbers and addresses are fundamental to being able to reach a debtor, but knowing when to reach out to the debtor is also a crucial factor impacting success or failure in getting payment. As referenced in the chart below, when a consumer enters the debtor life...read more

GoogleWallet & Citi - Dance with the one that brung ya...

  At midnight yesterday, Google sent me an email on how the new GoogleWallet update will now allow me to store my “Citi MasterCard” online. As other Google Wallet aficionados may recall (Bueller..? Bueller..?), Citi was the lone holdout in Google Wallet’s journey to the cloud and its race to...read more

MCX – MerChants reduX

First, it aims to drastically reduce payment acceptance costs through any and all means and Secondly – keep merchant data firmly within their purview. MCX – MerChants reduX: The post that follows is a collection of thoughts around MCX, why it deserves respect, and yet how it is indeed mortal and...read more

Navigating the plethora of skip tracing data sources

All skip tracing data is the same, right? Not exactly. While there are many sources of consumer contact data available to debt collectors, the quality, freshness, depth and breadth can vary significantly. Just as importantly, what you ultimately do or don't do with the data depends on several...read more

The power of credit attributes in the decision process

In my last post, I covered the importance of using quality credit attributes to gain greater accuracy in risk models.  Credit attributes are also powerful in strengthening the decision process by providing granular views on consumers based on unique behavior characteristics.  Effective uses include...read more

Credit attributes: Analytical decisioning building blocks

As building blocks to any predictive model development, it goes without saying that the better the predictive variables, also known as attributes, the more accurate the predictions. For many predictive analytic modeling shops, attributes are a key differentiator to model performance versus the...read more

Cell phones and debt collection: Seeking Mr. Goodbar’s number

It comes as no surprise to anyone that cell phone usage continues to rise, while at the same time the usage of wire lines, or what used to be affectionately known as POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), continues to decline. Some recent statistics, supplied by the CDC show that: 34% of all households...read more

Two key behavioral trends most lenders forget to evaluate

As the economy recovers from the recession, consumers are becoming more responsible with their credit card usage; credit card debts have not increased and delinquency rates have declined. Delinquency rates as a percentage of balances continue to decline with the short term 30-59 DPD period, now at...read more

Let's talk about security and fraud in mobile payments

I'm here in Vegas at the Mobile2020 conference and I am fascinated by my room key. This is not the usual “insert in to the slot, wait for it turn green or hear it chime” key cards, these are “tap and hold to a door scanner till the door opens” RFID key card. It is befitting the event I am about to...read more

Can credit education help collectors increase payments?

Let’s face it, debt collectors often get a bad rap.  Sure, some of it is deserved, but the majority of the nation’s estimated 157,000 collectors strive to do their job in a way that will satisfy both their employer and the debtor.  One way to improve collector/debtor interaction is for the collector...read more