Thoughts from the CRS 2009 Conference

It was a pleasure to present the industry keynote at Judy Hammond’s Collection & Recovery Solutions conference (CRS 2009) in Las Vegas last week, where I shared our view on the state of the industry and future trends (you can see the slides from the presentation on kaulkin.com).

Attending the show confirmed a lot of what we’ve been predicting for the industry. Generally, agency executives are bullish about their business due to the significant increase in placement volumes from bank card/credit card clients. First quarter performance was up due to tax refunds, but liquidations are trending down for early stage paper and most do not hold out hope that federal stimulus efforts will be effective in improving recovery efforts. Technology and other vendors are feeling the impact of the recession in the form of increased pressure from their clients to provide additional services at decreased rates.

Debt buyers are voicing their concern about portfolio pricing still being too high relative to liquidation rates (but coming down) and the impact of the credit crunch significantly impairing their ability to finance attractive purchases at reasonable rates. Those who are on the field playing ball are negotiating shorter term forward-flows with their clients and/or partnering with collection agency specialists to assure they are pricing right and have the best collectors locked in to service their purchases.

I am happy to say that quite a few recovery managers were in attendance during the sessions and in the exhibit hall, not just secretly meeting with their vendors away from the event. More so than I can recall in recent years, recovery managers made their presence felt last week.

Judy, Dennis, Chris, and Evan (et al) always produce a 5-star event and I am confident that CRS will be remembered as one of the most intimate and well-attended affairs of the year. Attendance was not down as significantly as I feared because of the impact of the recession on travel budgets and the growing paranoia over the past 2 weeks about the swine flu (I could not find a bottle of hand sanitizer anywhere).

CRS was also a personal milestone, as it was the first event where I posted live updates from the event on Twitter. Please let me know if it was helpful. We may do more twittering in the future.