Response to consultation on Guidelines on the establishment and maintenance of national lists or registers of credit servicers

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Question 1: Do you have any comments on the information on credit servicers to be included in the lists or registers as proposed in Guideline 4.1

Comments to paragraph 9 (j) and paragraph 10 under Guideline 4.1:

Paragraph 10 states that “Where the authorisation of a credit servicer has been withdrawn, the CA should include in the list or register, on an indefinite basis, the information that was updated and relevant at the time of the withdrawal of the authorisation.”

Intrum considers it disproportionate to include in the lists or registers, information regarding withdrawal of authorisations on an indefinite basis, as it could result in severe and disproportionally negative consequences. In the worst case, credit servicers could face reputational losses severely impacting the brand name and potentially leading to a loss of business for the credit servicer.

In this context, it should be noted that a withdrawal of an authorisation will not necessarily have been caused by undue business conduct of the credit servicer in question (see article 8 (1) of Directive 2021/2167 on credit servicers and credit purchasers (CSD)).

Intrum therefore suggests in the first place that (i) the lists or registers only include authorised credit servicers and subsequently de-authorised credit servicers be deleted from the lists or registers, or, secondly, that (ii) the information about withdrawn authorisations is included in the lists or registers for a limited period.

Intrum argues that such an approach would be more aligned with commonly known principles of statute of limitations and proposes such a time period to be no longer than two years.

Intrum wishes to highlight the following:

The mere authorisation as a credit servicer does not legitimate the credit servicer to request payments on behalf of a credit purchaser. For a payment request from a credit servicer to be legitimate, it is also required that the credit purchaser has contractually appointed the credit servicer to perform credit servicing activities. For this reason, specific requirements are laid out in Article 10 (2) of the CSD to ensure that relevant information is shared with the borrower. One could therefore question the value for the borrower of including information about de-authorised credit servicers in the lists or registers.

Furthermore, in the draft Guidelines 3.2.1 paragraph 11, EBA states, as background to its proposal to include information withdrawal of authorisation on an indefinite basis, that (i) “EBA’s payment and e-money institutions register indefinitely includes institutions whose authorisation has been withdrawn” and (ii) it is “valuable information for borrowers as it enables them to understand until when a payment request made by a credit servicer has been legitimate”.

As explained above, the role of a credit servicer differs greatly from that of a payment or e-money institution. A credit servicer merely acts as an intermediary between the credit purchaser and the borrower. Moreover, the access to payment or e-money services is more society critical. In addition, payment and e-money institutions offer financial products and services directly available to all users (consumers or companies). Unlike Directive (EU) 2015/2366 on payment services in the internal market (PSD2), the CSD does not explicitly state that information on withdrawal of authorisations shall be published in the national lists or registers (compare Articles 13 (3) PSD2 and 14 (3) PSD2 to Article 9 (3) CSD). Consequently, Intrum considers that it is not appropriate to rely on experience from payment or e-money registers when it comes to the content of credit servicer lists or registers.

To summarize, Intrum believes that the negative effects on credit servicers of including information on de-authorisations in the list or registers on an indefinite basis clearly outweigh the value it would have for borrowers and credit purchasers.

Comments to paragraph 9 (k) and paragraph 11 under Guideline 4.1:

Paragraph 9 (k) and paragraph 11 suggest that both home and host competent authority include information in the register about the authorisation status on the credit servicer being approved or prohibited to receive and hold funds from the borrower.

The right to receive funds from borrowers and hold the funds on behalf of credit purchasers is an established model in our sector. We are aware that this tradition was, surprisingly, questioned by one Member States during the final CSD trialogue negotiations. This is very unfortunate and we would like to take the opportunity to also inform the EBA that this longstanding right is typically part of any commercial agreement between a credit purchaser and a credit servicer. The practice is in fact so widespread that it is part of any contract between a commercial provider (e.g., bank, telecom-, utility- and e-commerce companies) and debt collection company in any EU country.

We are therefore questioning the rationale to include this information in the lists or registers for credit servicers. The borrower has fulfilled his or her payment obligation when paying to the authorised credit servicer. This means that a potential insolvency of the credit servicer is not a concern for the borrower but rather for the credit purchaser, as in any commercial relationship. The requirement to keep separate accounts as laid down in the CSD is a sufficient measure and does not need further elaboration in the Guidelines.

Question 2: Do you have any comments on the accessibility requirements of the lists or registers, as proposed in Guideline 4.2?

NA

Question 3: Do you have any comments on the approach for updating the lists or registers, as proposed in Guideline 4.3?

Overall, Intrum welcomes the proposal that the national lists or registers should be promptly updated and that a common Template is used for informing competent authorities across the EU as stated in Annex 1 to the draft Guidelines.

Comments to Template in Annex 1, field for description of anti-money laundering procedures:

Intrum does not consider that it would be relevant to include “A description of the procedure established in order to comply with the anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing rules, whereby the national law of the host Member State transposing Directive (EU) 2015/849 designates credit servicers as obliged entities for the purpose of preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing”.

The main reason is that credit servicers are not designated as “obliged entities” under current EU AML legislation. Intrum is aware that a new EU AML Package is currently negotiated and our understanding is that the future AML Regulation should not amend this, i.e., credit servicers would still not fall under “obliged entities”. This is logical for several reasons: money laundering risks are low in our area and, in addition, credit institutions are already designated as “obliged entities” and subject to full AML provisions. Hence, Know-Your-Customer checks on borrowers are already performed by the credit institutions and their payment transactions are already processed and monitored via credit institutions. Concerning cash payments, it is exceptionally rare that a credit servicer accepts cash payments and, if this is the case, such payments are already subject to restrictions and controls in accordance with local debt collection laws.

Our understanding is that Article 5 (1) section (h) has simply been included in the CSD because, currently, credit servicers have different type of licenses, due to national legal discrepancies. Some of them have consumer credit licenses or Alternative Investment Fund Manager licenses which makes them subject to AML law. This fact does not in itself warrant credit servicing being subject to AML law.

Question 4: Do you have any comments on the approach for providing an overview of competent authorities that handle complaints under the CSD in the EU, as proposed in Guideline 4.4?

NA

Name of the organization

Intrum AB (publ)