First Data Expands Bankruptcy, Deceased Data Availability

Processor First Data Corp. this week released a new product designed to provide quick and thorough notification of bankruptcy and deceased consumers to collection, accounts receivables management and auto finance firms.

The Notify Solutions product compiles public records from 7,000 federal, county and local courthouses nationwide in addition Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The bankruptcy database is updated daily while the deceased database is updated weekly and includes all deaths reported to the Social Security Administration. Records from Guam are not included in the death database.

Notify Solutions users can remove the account from their collections efforts and stop all mailings and other attempts to communicate with the account, according to First Data.

“This helps debt purchasers and collection agencies work their strategies more efficiently. They can work them better and faster,” said Mike Geppert, president of First Data’s Solutions division that is rolling out Notify Solutions. “We automate the process and help to reduce costs. It saves them the time and labor to look for (these consumers) on a manual basis.”

Denver-based First Data has been serving the receivables management and debt purchasing market since 1988, said Geppert. It has previously offered a so-called trigger product similar to Notify Solutions to clients on an individual basis. “We are expanding this due to client request. This release is for general availability,” said Geppert.

Geppert declined to disclose pricing but said it is volume based. First Data plans to add other data sets to Notify Solutions in the near future including consumer contact information.

First Data is the largest electronic transaction processor in the world serving over 1,900 cards issuers and 5 million merchants. Products include credit and debit card processing, electronic check acceptance, Internet payments, and fraud protection and authentication.