UK Debt Collection Industry Comprises 500 Companies that Generated $875 Million in Revenues In 2004

Creditors are facing a range of challenges from slowing front-end growth to an environment of customer over-indebtedness and changing debtor profile resulting in rising delinquencies and insolvencies. As a result, there is increasing focus on debt management and pressure for P&L performance in a period of declining baseline performance. Future leaders will respond by taking a strategic, segment-level approach based on use of data, analytics and process innovation that leverages the increasingly diverse supply market in debt management capabilities.

To quantify these trends, Research and Markets has announced the addition of “UK Debt Management Industry Market Report 2004-2005″, published by the TDX Group, to their offering. This document includes market research and trend analysis synthesised with extensive hands-on experiences and learning. Included within, readers will learn more about the key players, industry dynamics, current trends, and the challenges and opportunities within the industry.

Chapters Include:

• Executive Summary
  • Chapter-1: The Market Context

  • Chapter-2: The Supply Market for Debt Management Services

  • Chapter-3: Market Trends and Outlook
• List of Exhibits

Personal debt in the UK has reached an all-time high at GBP 1.1 trillion of secured and unsecured debt. Economic stability, supported by low inflation, low interest rates and a competitive financial services sector has underpinned robust growth in consumer borrowing, raising household debt to 150% of income.

The combination of high levels of debt and increasingly over-leveraged consumers is leading to higher delinquencies and write-offs. Major creditors, including banks, building societies, credit card suppliers, utilities and public service companies, are beginning to recognize that bad debt is an increasing challenge that requires new solutions to address.

The increasing demand for debt management activities has led to the high growth of the UK debt management market in recent years. This growth has seen both the dramatic increase in new entrants and an increased investment in technology and new services as debt Management Company’s work to meet the growing needs of creditors.

New tools are driving improved performance. More analytical focus is being placed on debt management activities. Debt sale has become a key tool for many financial institutions and utilities for extracting value from their bad or uncollected debt. On the whole, all the segments of the debt collection market are witnessing mergers, acquisitions, rationalization and increasing trends towards globalisation of debt collection activities.

SCOPE

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the UK debt market, examining latest issues and key market trends to give readers a detailed view of the current market and key emerging trends in the debt management industry. The report provides data-rich information and insights, covering:

• Debt Market Background

• Growth and Trends in Consumer Debt

• Segmental Analysis of the Debt Market (Secured, Unsecured, Utilities debt, Corporate Debt)

• Market Size and Growth of the UK Debt Management Industry

• Sector Analysis of the Debt Management Market (Contingent Collections, Debt Sale / Purchase, First Party Collections Outsourcing)

• Mergers & Acquisitions

• Technology

• Regulatory Framework

• Globalisation

• Latest Issues & Key Market Trends

• Challenges for the Debt Management Industry

• Outlook for the Next 5 Years

HIGHLIGHTS

• “The UK debt collection industry comprises approximately 500 companies that generated GBP 462 million in revenues in 2004″

• “The top 10 players accounted for 55% of the total market in the year 2004. This has fallen from 63% in 2001 due to stiff competition from medium and small collection agencies”

• “The smaller players have improved profitability significantly relative to the top players. While the average operating profit margin for the top 10 players has increased only slightly from 13.8% in 2001 to 14.6% in 2004, margins for the rest of the industry rose by 3.7% points to 15.3% in 2004″