News

  • News
    14 July 2020

    FENCA welcomes European Commission announcement of COVID-19 Best Practices

    Berlin, 14 July 2020 

    As part of the ongoing commitment of the European credit servicing and credit purchasing industry to support creditors and borrowers during the current pandemic, FENCA welcomes today’s announcement by European Commission Executive Vice-President, Valdis Dombrovskis, of the Best Practices in relation to relief measures offered to consumers and businesses in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.

     

    These Best Practices represent the outcome of the European Commission’s initiative to bring together representatives of the leading financial industry associations – including FENCA – and representatives of consumers and businesses, and to facilitate a high-level dialogue during two roundtables on best practices in May and June 2020.

     

    Commenting on today’s announcement of the European Commission, Claus Spedtsberg, President of FENCA said:

     

    “We would like to commend the European Commission on the success to foster a high-level agreement among all the participants of the round table. We appreciate that the resulting Best Practices outline temporary, non-binding relief measures, many of which have already been and will continue to be implemented voluntarily by many financial institutions since the beginning of the crisis to support those borrowers and debtors who have been directly affected by it. FENCA looks forward to continuing the dialogue with the Commission and all stakeholders, not only on the continuing impact of COVID-19 in the coming months, but also – and hopefully soon – on possible paths to a successful recovery”.  

     

    The Best Practices are available here.
    The European Commission’s Press Release is available here.
    FENCA's Press Release is available here.

  • Federation News
    22 April 2020

    FENCA Declaration on COVID-19

    Berlin, 22 April 2020

    On behalf of the European credit servicing and credit purchasing industry, FENCA would like to express its support to the European institutions, businesses and citizens in dealing with the current COVID-19 pandemic.

     

    Not only the health and wellbeing of all of us, including the people we hold dearest, are threatened, but also our social lives have come to a halt.

     

    Beyond that, we see and feel the negative economic effects on the financial markets, on businesses large and small in all sectors, on self-employed people and freelancers, and on private citizens all over the EU.  

     

    For all FENCA Members and their member companies the basis and guiding principle for any debt collection activities has always been the fair treatment of persons who find themselves to be in arrears or are over-indebted. Persons who are in debt are often vulnerable, and for FENCA members it has always been the aim to find the best possible solutions for individual cases – where possible, even in collaboration with debt advice services.  

     

    These guiding principles are coming into even sharper focus for us in the current crisis.

     

    In many EU member states governments have put in place emergency legislation to help and protect companies and private citizens by, among other things, providing financial aid or bridging loans, as well as by setting up moratoria on payment obligations, amending insolvency procedures, and other provisions.   

     

    FENCA fully supports these efforts and holds them to be right and necessary to protect the countless people in need because of the effect of the COVID-19 crisis.

     

    At the same time, we would also like to emphasise that these measures – as important they are right now – are in place only temporarily and only for as long as this crisis lasts. They should not be used to prevent the collection of rightful claims permanently.

     

    After all, the success and speed of the economic recovery for enterprises, SMEs, self-employed people and the economy at large will not least depend on the possibility for creditors to responsibly reclaim monies they are owed.

     

    FENCA and its members will reach out to stakeholders and do everything to contribute to the restart the economy and to help pave the way to return to normality for the well-being of European companies and citizens.

     

     

  • News
    29 October 2018

    At FENCA Congress 2018 in Strasbourg the FENCA Code of Conduct for GDPR was adpoted. Further Michela De Marchi (UNIREC – Italy) and Claus Spedtsberg (DiB – Denmark) were elected as new members to the FENCA Board of Directors, while Rayna Mitkova-Todorova (ACABG – Bulgaria) and Piotr Badowski (PZZW – Poland) were re-elected to serve for another three-year term.
     

  • News
    31 May 2018
    As FENCA celebrates its 25th Anniversary this year, we tracked down its first ever President, Kurt Obermaier, to geht his views on the early days of FENCA and his hopes for the future of the Federation. 

     

  • News
    27 March 2018

    With the adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Spring 2017 one of the longest legislative processes in EU history finally came to an end. Actually, “end” is not the right word!  Even though FENCA was heavily engaged in lobbying and preparation throughout the GDPR negotiations, for FENCA just as for the whole debt collection industry, the adoption of GDPR by EU authorities marked just the beginning of the next and most difficult stage of a journey.  The debt collection sector and supervising authorities need to understand and define how GDPR would be implemented and monitored in our industry. And time presses: GDPR will apply from 25 May 2018.

     

  • News
    08 March 2018

    Following 3 months of intense effort to convert the questionnaire which forms the essential basis for the FENCA GDPR Code of Conduct into an online product, FENCA Members are currently completing the questionnaire, which will provide the granular detail needed by our legal consultant, Dr Gero Ziegenhorn, and the FENCA GDPR steering committee (Leigh, Erwin, and Andreas) to ensure the draft Code reflects the practices of our sector in all 28 EU member states and every other EEA country represented by FENCA with regard to the processing of personal data.

     

  • News
    14 February 2017

    The big picture - modern accounts receivable management focuses on customer retention

     

  • News
    02 October 2017

    During FENCA Congress 2017 FENCA's Director General seized the opportunity to introduce FENCA to a broader audience. In a live interview with Bloomberg TV Dr. Andreas Bücker spoke about FENCA, the Association's relevance and mission for the European debt collection industry and gave first hand insights into future developments of the European debt collection and debt purchase markets.

  • News
    24 August 2017

    How will the GDPR influence debt collection? Will collection companies still be allowed to collect and process personal data? - Yes! That is the conclusion of a new White Paper, recently published by the German Association of Debt Collection Companies (BDIU).