The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's second annual report to Congress, presented on Wednesday, outlined last year's key developments related to the department taking over primary collection agency enforcement duties from the Federal Trade Commission.
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The CFPB in October finalized the rule for supervising larger debt collection firms after discussing the proposed rule for the bulk of the year. The bureau now supervises firms with more than "$10 million in annual receipts resulting from consumer debt collection" after the rule went into effect on Jan. 2.
Receipts are defined as "total income" plus “cost of goods sold” and not amounts collected for another party. The new reporting practices adopted by such large market companies eventually will trickle down to smaller companies, Rozanne Andersen, vice president and chief compliance officer at Muncie, Ind.-based Ontario Systems LLC, and former CEO at ACA International, told Collections & Credit Risk.
Some 30 million Americans have debt under collection, with average unpaid debt around $1,500, according to the CFPB. Under the final rule, the CFPB can evaluate collectors to make sure they are clearly and accurately identifying themselves, disclosing the amount of debt owed and not trying to collect debt that has been paid off or does not exist.
