Worry-free collections compliance driven by digital

Regulations around debt collection can be difficult to navigate – and for good reason as consumers need to be protected – but that can come with its challenges. As an intelligent agency, we believe good compliance is more than a business requirement. It’s an opportunity that can reduce regulatory oversight, litigation, and customer complaints – all which enhance an organisation’s reputation.

Our intelligent collections product, Collect has built-in compliance that meets requirements no matter where in the world our clients are based. Providing a digital experience end-to-end, if any new regulations are introduced, they are automatically updated on our system so there’s no need for organisations to check every email and SMS to ensure the correct wording and disclosures are included.

One product covering all compliance requirements

InDebted’s Chief Compliance Officer, Tim Collins says a good compliance framework should start with a fundamental understanding of customers, including knowing how they want to be treated. “A lot of regulation is based on the minimum standards for looking after customers but the service we provide is above the minimum,” he says. “We give customers positive, personalised and frictionless experiences that are also compliant.”

For example, all messages Collect sends are compliance approved before they’re released. It also automatically knows how many messages can legally be sent and at what times, for the specific region a customer is located.

Our clients also expect us to hold the appropriate certifications related to collections and ours include:

• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) which ensures companies that deal with credit card information maintain a secure environment.
• ISO/IEC 27001 – the international standard relating to managing information securely.
• ISO 9001 – the international standard for quality management systems.
• SOC 2 – a voluntary standard for US organisations that specify how customer data should be managed.

Compliance changes covered seamlessly

Collect also has a compliance firewall that enforces compliance at every stage of the collections process and inputs any new rules and regulations at scale by code. This adds an additional layer of protection for businesses, to ensure that regardless of where your customers are, all collections activity is compliant.

Collins says, “Our clients know if any regulatory body in the world comes out with a new rule or requirement, our platform automatically updates to cater for it – there’s no waiting time as there’s no human involvement in the process.”

For example, the US-based Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has announced updated rulings within the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, that allow collection agencies to interact with consumers across all forms of electronic communications.

“Organisations ask us how we’re going to meet these new regulations,” Collins says. “But our product is built to always be compliant. Back-end operations such as these can be cumbersome for some but not us, as our digital-first and customer-focussed product is designed so no matter what we send, when we send it, or in what format, we’re always compliant.”