According to the SRO “National Association of Professional Collection Agencies” (NAPCA), for the first nine months of 2019 under the Agency-based service (debt remains on the balance of a credit institution, and collectors carry out debt collection on its behalf for the commission) debt collection agencies were passed 7.7 million primary debts totaling more than 453 billion rubles.This is 83% in quantitative and 10% in monetary terms higher than in the same period last year. Moreover, the rate of growth of transferred debts in quantity increased significantly, and in volume, on the contrary, decreased – then year to year they were 10% and 37%, respectively.

According to EOS, there was slowing the volume growth of transferred debts due to the fact that in 2018, the low base effect triggered – the agency debt collection market has just begun to recover after a prolonged recession caused by the economic crisis and, as a consequence, the contraction of the retail lending market. “The number of transferred cases has grown as banks have become more readily to give debt collection agencies primary debts,” – adds Fedor Vahata, CEO of M.B.A. Finance. — This is due to the need to reduce credit risks and some changes in the work with debts in the banks themselves.” At the same time, the increase in the number of transferred cases caused a decrease in the average amount of debt passed to work from 97.6 thousand to 58.5 thousand rubles.

At the same time, there have been significant changes in the structure of transferred debt to collectors. Traditionally, consumer loans (POS and cash loans) made up a large share, but compared to last year, it fell from 82% to 67%. The share of credit cards transferred to work increased by 5 percentage points to 14%, auto loans – by 9.7 percentage points to 17.7%.

According to Elman Mekhtiev, the President of SRO NAPCA, the structure of the agency portfolio of collection agencies is directly proportional to the structure of banks’ loans. “If banks are active in a particular segment, then in 6-12 months we see the growth of this segment in the work of agencies,” – he explains. “Over the past year, two segments have been actively developing: credit cards and car loans,” – said Roman Volosnikov, CEO of NSV. – The first — because in conditions of continuing risks, the lender has the opportunity to change the limit depending on the solvency of the client, the second — because it is not possible to make such a large purchase without the use of credit funds.”  According to Evgeny Senkovsky, the Deputy Director of the Department for work with overdue debts of ROSBANK, the increase in the transfer of car loans to collectors is also likely due to the increase in the auto portfolio of captive and specialized autobanks, which, in turn, actively use the Agency-based service scheme of collection.

According to the forecasts of market participants, the trend of changing the structure of the portfolio will continue to the end of this year and will increase next year. According to Mr. Mekhtiev, in total, by the end of 2019, banks will transfer to collectors about 540-550 billion rubles of overdue debt against 505 billion rubles a year earlier. “Thus, the volume growth will be about 7-9%, in quantitative terms, the increase will be about 50%—” he said.— Such a skew in the growth rate is associated with the reduction of the average amount of debt almost twice a year. The main influence on it is exerted by consumer loans, which retain leadership in portfolios, and namely there there was a sharp decrease in overdue debt associated with stricter requirements for the quality of loans.”