Analytics

Encore Capital Group Inc., a San Diego-based debt buyer, reported net income of $13.7 million in the quarter ended March 31, up 26% from the year-ago period.

Debt buyer Asset Acceptance Capital Corp., based in Warren, Mich., reported a drop in revenue and an uptick in cash collections for the first quarter ended March 31.

Citibank announced Thursday it is hiring up to 1,400 debt collectors in Indonesia after the country's central bank found irregularities in the bank’s collection practices handled by third-party collectors.

Thirteen percent of loans modified through the Home Affordable Modification Program in the first half of 2010 were 60 days delinquent after six months, compared with 24% of loans in alternative programs, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) said in a recent report.

The average charge-off rate on U.S. consumer credit cards fell in March, resuming its general trend of improvement after a slight uptick in February, and account-delinquencies also declined, according to new data Moody’s Investors Service released April 25.

Trustwave Holdings Inc. needs to raise money and apparently believes the nation’s economic environment has improved just enough for an initial public offering to achieve that goal, one analyst contends.

Credit quality is improving for Capital One Financial Corp., but the bank and card issuer expects loan growth to continue to be slow as competition for new customers intensifies.

A Pennsylvania woman filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against Target Corp. and its law firm over the department store's collection practices, claiming false affidavits were used to go after customers who allegedly owed money to a subsidiary bank that issues the store's credit cards.

An estimated 515 different collection agencies and creditors were sued between March 16-31, the highest half-month period thus far in 2011 and up from 417 sued between March 1-15, according to data from U.S. District Courts.

Early data indicate consumers survived the holidays with less financial distress than in the previous few years, and the average U.S. credit card charge-off rate for most major issuers remains on track to continue declining for at least the next few months, according to analysts at Moody’s Investors Service.

Lawmakers from both political parties sharply criticized the banking regulators on Thursday for their risk-retention proposal, arguing it will lead to a credit crunch.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced April 14 it will issue contact smart credit cards to U.S. customers in June, making it the second bank to bet that this technology, commonplace in Europe, will finally take hold in the States.

Credit scores nationwide fell two points to 665 in the first quarter ended March 31, according to CreditKarma.com, which released its U.S. Credit Score Climate Report on Wednesday.

Tenso.com, a subsidiary of the NetPrice Group Ltd., will use Retail Decisions Ltd.’s fraud-prevention service to screen its online sales, the London-based card-fraud prevention and payment-processing company announced April 12.

Merchants have warmed up to the idea of banding together to fight fraud in recent years, and First Data Corp.’s improved fraud-detection system that anonymously shares information about the online purchases of client retailers’ customers could help to accomplish their fraud-detection needs.

Potential client losses are the biggest risk Epsilon faces from a data breach that exposed customers’ e-mail addresses, the marketing firm’s parent said April 6.

The number of Americans filing for bankruptcy dropped 6% in the first quarter of 2011 compared to the previous year, according to data from the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) and the National Bankruptcy Research Center.

Federal banking regulators are set to release new guidelines Monday that they hope will restore the battered reputation of risk models - widely disparaged as a result of the financial crisis - by forcing banks to improve how they design and implement them.

Cambridge Credit Counseling released its Debt Relief Performance Report on Thursday, the first in a series of disclosures that will serve as the key piece of a new consumer education and public affairs initiative.

Certain effects of the economic downturn have begun to ease, but one recession-hatched trend persists: Cash-strapped consumers continue to show a preference for paying their credit card bills over their mortgages, according to new data TransUnion LLC released March 29.