IBEAM™; why you really should take a look.

Are you a repossession agent?

Existing relationships

Why not invite your existing suppliers to join IBEAM™; providing they meet our comprehensive compliance requirements they are welcome into the open market. Once part of IBEAM™, you can monitor their performance and costs against the industry benchmark, ensuring you are getting the best return on your investment.

COMPLIANCE

PROCESS EFFICIENCY

IBEAM™ looks too expensive

RETURNS:  the value realised on remarketing your asset. IBEAM™ can be fully data-integrated with your remarketing channel giving accurate, up-to-the-minute performance information)

INVESTMENTS: Our full workshop goes into lots more depth, but let’s start with the sum of;

1. the transaction cost of IBEAM™;
2. the suppliers’ direct costs;
3. Your internal overhead cost of instigating and managing the supplier contracts,
4. Monitoring and maintaining supplier compliance, and;
5. Setting up and performing supplier invoice approval and payments etc.

IBEAM™ is designed to help you get the most from your supply chain. To measure a supplier’s contract performance on their ‘asset recovery rate’ is to miss so much

IBEAM™ is designed from the ground up to drive an increased return on investment in your collections & recovery departments. We measure and we measure differently! By recording

We do our own compliance, thank you..

IBEAM™ ‘open market’ pricing model

Who, what are Auto Intelligence?

lbrown@sacherokee.com

Consolidated Asset Recovery Systems Announces International Partnership with iCompli

Raleigh, N.C. (Jan. 4, 2012) – Consolidated Asset Recovery Systems (CARS), a Raleigh-based leader in repossession and remarketing services, has announced its first international partnership with iCompli, a U.K.-based compliance technology company. iCompli will leverage CARS’ unique Internet-Based Electronic Asset Management (IBEAM™) Web portal through its finance sector facing brand Auto Intelligence to simplify compliance processes for the audit, tracking and remarketing of non-performing assets in localized U.K. and European markets.

“Having an international presence is very useful to CARS and will help us streamline the asset recovery process,” said Steve Norwood, CEO of CARS. “Dealing with international repossessions can often prove cumbersome, and this partnership with iCompli will help us set the standard for recovery worldwide.”

Through a common single interface, lenders will have complete transparency into the repossession process regardless of the asset’s location. International repossessions will be tracked and analyzed as easily as domestic assignments are in the United States.

“For the asset owner who is being driven hard to manage ‘cost of risk’ and ‘lean’ their organization, this is a great opportunity to influence asset recovery rates and improve standards of information and service delivery whilst integrating best practice on an international scale,” said Duncan Smith, CEO of iCompli. “We think, and you win.”

Consolidated Asset Recovery Systems offers an I-BEAM™ portal to lenders that not only displays real-time information from the field but also provides instant updates from a network of more than 600 repossession agents and remarketing specialists. The portal is intended to help eliminate the overlap and miscommunication that runs rampant in the remarketing process.

For information about Consolidated Asset Recovery Systems, visit www.ez-recovery.com.

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 About Consolidated Asset Recovery Systems

Consolidated Asset Recovery Systems, a leader in repossession and remarketing services, assists prime, sub-prime, captive and regional lenders. Through its unique I-BEAM™ Web portal, asset tracking and real-time updates can be monitored, offering complete transparency throughout the recovery process. Consolidated Asset Recovery Systems’ growing community of agents, transporters and auctions all share data within the I-BEAM portal, a hosted solution offered as Software as a Service (SaaS). 

About iCompli Limited T/A Auto Intelligence

iCompli provides compliance training, risk assessment and auditing solutions designed to lift the compliance burden for organizations in the finance, technology, data, education, charity and commercial sectors and through its finance sector facing brand Auto Intelligence delivers risk and recovery solutions. Core competencies of INVESTIGATION and COMPLIANCE, combined with extensive understanding of business process improvement and a systematic approach to Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC), ensures that Auto Intelligence is set to challenge the Asset Finance supply chain dynamics for non-performing assets. For more information, visit www.auto-intelligence.co.uk

Judging by the response we have had regarding last month’s article on the subject of Contingency Fees, No Win, no Fee, No Asset, we have certainly hit on a subject that generates considerable interest.

We were genuinely overwhelmed by those of you that took the time to communicate your thoughts on the subject, we received telephone calls and email postings from the UK, Mainland Europe and the United States, from various stakeholder parties including asset owners and service providers.

Owing to the response we felt compelled to advance the debate by informing on the types of response we received. This in no way is designed to form any kind of empirical study into the subject matter and is merely a précis of comments made to us.

Basically the responses fell into to broad categories, one justifying contingent fee arrangements and one condemning them, these basic responses were also broadly and equally drawn from either the lenders or the service providers point of view. Most interesting is the theme drawn from the lenders perspective was the introduction of the question of trust.

Service providers (or at least the ones that contacted us) were very generally against the provision of contingency fee arrangements and following is some examples of the comments made.

1. Contingency fee arrangements do not provide and environment for a sustainable business model that develops and improves services provided.
2. Contingency fees encourage some providers to act in a non professional way.
3. We have concerns about the transparency of instructions provided and felt that lenders were sometimes chancing occasional successful outcomes in the knowledge that there were limited chances of success.
4. Contingency fee arrangements provide a risk to public safety in that some agents may be encouraged to act illegally in order to secure their fee.
5. Contingency fees cost agents, lenders want to save money by cutting repossession costs but agents have to stay in business to provide services.
6. You get what you pay for; professional fees get professional services carried out correctly with higher rates of return.
7. Not paying agents for the sincere effort they put into an assigned account leads to a future unwillingness to go the extra mile.
8. Insurance and good staff do not come cheap; asking agents to work for free is demeaning.
9. The absence of any due diligence opportunity prior to being offered contingency fee arrangements exists in no other industry.

In some extreme examples we were informed that one agent had been provided basic contingent fee assignments for cases involving serious and organised criminality where the issuer was aware of this and failed to inform him, and one respondent vigorously questioned the sanity of some instructions he had received which were as he described 3^rd placement voluntary repossessions, stating that if the asset owner and the two previous service providers had been unsuccessful in organising voluntary arrangement then what prospects were there for him to succeed.

Finally, from an agent’s perspective Kenny Leon from Albany creatively stated:

“The fishing rod has a price right. No one fishes with that rod if they don’t pay for it. The screw up is when the rod is placed on the shelf without first knowing the price and then allowing the customer to fish without paying for it. Oh thats right, use the rod and if you don’t catch any fish you don’t have to pay for it. How many fishing stores do we think will still be in business operating this way?”

However, largely expressed by the lender community was the theme of trust:

1. Why should we pay any fees when we do not know that the instruction is going to be worked properly
2. Paying on physical results confirms that we are getting value for money.
3. Agents boast of their recovery rates prior to contracting and never quite live up to the expectation they set for themselves, contingency fees insulate us from this effect.
4. It is not up to us to incentivise the agents, it is up to them to do this for themselves.
5. We have such a variable experience in agent performance that contingent fees are the only way to keep our suppliers keen.
6. We have never been offered an alternative, every agent who has ever visited us has only offered a contingent fee based service.
7. We offer 2^nd and 3^rd placement repossession instructions on a no win no fee basis because by the time the account has passed through our process anything left outstanding is unrecoverable.
8. Good agents are so difficult to find, and even when you do find one they can go off the boil, remunerating in this way keeps them simmering.
9. Recent poor experiences and compliance requirements are causing us to seriously reconsider who we do business with and on what terms, our fear though is increased costs.

So what can we conclude from this:

Not much that can be relied upon, it’s all anecdotal comment but we can determine some themes expressed:

Some lenders and asset owners do not seem to have much faith in their repossession supply chain service providers and some of their supply chain service providers seem disenfranchised from their customers. There appears to be a two sided potential misconception, on the one hand that lenders expect work done for free and on the other hand fear of being ripped off. There is no common establishment or alignment for success.

So where is this debate going.

Well we don’t know, obviously some of the themes expressed can be addressed through better communication, closer relations and deeper audit and compliance routines. Outside of the IBEAM collaboration portal there is no industry wide performance score carding or benchmarking driving incentive and performance and this combined with an open market access approach de cloaking and de mystifying industry practices on both sides of the supply chain would alleviate and de risk any fears on the part of lenders and asset owners. If contingency fee arrangements are only a mechanism to retain control over expenditure and return on investment then this is a) a very poor reflection on support service provision and b) not by some way sufficiently the best way to overcome any trust issues.

Ultimately in an open market the market will decide on the basis on which suppliers and clients complete transactions in the most efficient and rewarding manner for both parties. Fortunately for us most of the thinking surrounding this subject has already been incorporated into the IBEAM collaboration platform, but most surprising for us was the fact that no one directly raised the issue of transfer of commercial risk and entitlement to greater reward that is associated with contingency based fee arrangements that exist in every other industry in which contingent fee arrangements are relevant.

Auto Intelligence announces strategic alliance with the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM), bringing opportunity for occupational road risk management to the delinquent vehicle management supply chain.

Participant service providers in the IBEAMTM open market asset recovery program are able to access a suite of online services provided by IAM at a discounted rate for the purposes of addressing and mitigating their occupational road risk.

“Requirements under the H&SAW Act determine that risk assessments and prescriptive follow ups be taken to mitigate any risk” said David Tomes of Auto Intelligence, “for SME’s and the self employed this has long been in the too difficult to do draw”.

“By accessing online risk assessment tools vehicle repossessors can now easily comply with the law, enhance their own and their clients reputations and potentially negotiate reductions in their insurance costs” , says Julie Mills, of Drive and Survive, the IAM’s commercial road risk management division.

IAM provide an online suite of online occupational road risk management tools including online risk assessments that can be accessed at discounted rates for IBEAMTM open market suppliers by emailing a request for logon to info@auto-intelligence.co.uk

We think we should be issuing a warning regarding a potential clear and present danger regarding insurance provision for asset repossession. There is potentially a huge black hole to be filled.

We have received many applications from repossession professionals and agents of various size and scale for inclusion within the IBEAM^TM open market collaboration platform.

A number of applicants claimed to be conducting repossession activities on behalf of the asset finance community as a point of reference, but were completely unable to produce or provide  evidence of even the most basic road risk policy, let alone any policy that covered their repossession activities and are protective of their clients.

Whether these applicants were embellishing their previous achievements, or whether they had been insured through some higher order, perhaps by their instructing lender is not clear.

What is perfectly clear is that there are companies and individuals willing to take on work in this sector without being adequately insured. Which means that it is quite likely that work is currently being carried out without adequate insurance.

This is a great big RED FLAG and should trigger an immediate review of insurance provision.

Remember, with the extent of multiple sub contracting that occurs in this business you will need to ensure that the individual in the field carrying out the instruction is actually insured.

We think that this situation is so important that we have commenced a dialogue with insurance providers in this sector. We wish to discover from them the penetration of policies written and compare that with the number of known practitioners.

There are of course other reasons why we are engaging in this dialogue with the insurance sector, the main one being related to cost of repossession related insurance.

With single operator insurance premiums costing sometimes several thousands of pounds, this can represent at least one month of annual revenue or more to the repossession service provider. That is to say the provider may have to work up to a month or more just to pay for adequate insurance.

This provides a significant barrier to entry and a potential risk that providers will operate without it.

The premiums are high for several reasons, some of which are, high risk business activity, minimum and entry premium levelling, and lack of visibility as to the actual risk undertaking.

The IBEAM^TM open market collaboration platform provides compliance confirmations as to its service provider’s insurance adequacy.

It provides the insurer with full visibility of the risk undertaken, and combining this visibility with risk mitigation routines like the introduction of driving risk assessments and training to the sector should all serve to improve the risk appetite of insurers, giving them the confidence they require to properly engage in the sector and establish fairer actual risk informed policies.

This activity should remove barriers to entry and introduce fairer and greater competition.

WE THINK, YOU WIN^TM

Banks, lending institutions, vehicle manufacturers and large corporates will all be well versed with their duty of care in relation to Occupational Road Risk.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 employers have a statutory duty to carry out an assessment of the risks to the health and safety of their employees and that certainly includes driving activity.

Is it possible that such a duty of care extends to a company’s supply chain, moreover to what extent does a duty of care exist in agency arrangements, where an agent is acting on behalf of a principle?

Certainly the constituent members of the supply chain have a duty of care to their employees and this extends to zero rated employment contracts and the self employed.

So why be concerned about occupational road risk? Because many of us are in a business involving motor vehicles, whether it be leasing them, repossessing them, evaluating them, moving them or selling them. All such activities include an element of occupational road risk.

So what to do about it? The law requires that you carry out an assessment of the risks and take action to mitigate the risks identified.

If you are a vehicle repossession company you are engaging in a risk activity with pretty much every instruction undertaken.

What happens should an unfortunate incident occur? The Police treat the scene of a road traffic collision fatality as an un lawful killing locus and will investigate accordingly, which will include interrogation of any drivers on business and their compliance under the H&SAW Act.

Then there are the reputational issues, not only as an agent, but also the reputation of the principle, usually a major brand with serious investment in brand reputation.  Compliance with the law demonstrates that you are serious about what you do.

From an insurance perspective, insurance being one of the higher costs to participation in the repossession sector, how will your insurance company value your renewal? If you are able to demonstrate that you have properly assessed the risks and taken action to mitigate them there is no doubt that this will be viewed more favourably, or in other words, will reduce the costs of your premiums.

So for reason of legal compliance, reputation and insurance costs it makes perfect sense to engage in the management of your occupational road risk.

Recent information from Belgium Law Enforcement sources shows that some Albanian and Romanian criminal groups are adapting their methods to steal cargo, a new Modus Operandi “Trojan trucks” has been identified in Belgium.

The OFT has updated its debt collection guidance. Although the guidance is entitled ‘Debt Collection Guidance’ it sets out what the OFT expects of all those engaged in the pursuance of consumer credit related debts. This version replaces all previous versions.

All those who have not yet reviewed the guidance should immediately do so and implement any required operational changes immediately.

The guidance can be found on the OFT website here: OFT Guidance