On October 30, the CFPB finally released much awaited set of new rules as a major update to the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) released in 1977. One of the central tenants in the new rules limits the frequency of communication between collectors and borrowers to a maximum of seven attempts per week. Here is a detailed post explaining the legal language in the new rules.

Prodigal is a data science company at the core and we even look at new regulations from a quantitative lens. With the new CFPB rules finally in place, we looked at the collections industry data to see how the rulings impact the way agencies collect. It was startling to find out that agencies will lose out on 15% of their attempt volume.

Imagine losing 15% of your attempts to collect, overnight! That is part of the impact of the latest ruling. 

A few things agencies may want to consider with the latest rules

• How easily can you pull reports to see how many times you’re calling an account in any consecutive seven days period till you establish the contact?

• Once you establish the contact, you are not allowed to have a conversation for seven consecutive days.  Every contact becomes precious.  How effective are your agents?  Are they also compliant with the timing requirements?

• What additional reporting and resources need to be put in place to ensure you’re staying compliant? 

These are a few reasons why Prodigal exists. With customized dashboards, speech analytics and reporting, it’s easy to see your call volume by account and contact effectiveness while ensuring you’re staying compliant with this latest shift.