SEATTLE, Wash. — Built In today announced that Attunely Inc. was honored in its 2021 “Best Places To Work” Awards. Specifically, Attunely earned a recognition for Best Places to Work (#40 of 100), Best Small Places to Work (#7 of 50), and Best Paying Companies (#29 of 50) in Seattle. The annual awards include companies of all sizes, from startups to the enterprise, nationally and in the eight largest tech markets. 

“We are thrilled to be recognized for the culture, values and benefits we share with our employees. As an early-stage company, we understand that human capital is the primary asset of an organization. And being in the company of the well-established leaders on this list is an enviable accolade we do not take for granted” says Scott Ferris, CEO. 

Built In determines winners for Best Places to Work based on an algorithm, using company data about compensation, benefits, and cultural programs. To reflect the attributes candidates are searching for on Built In today, this year’s program weighted criteria more heavily, like remote opportunities and programs for diversity, equity, and inclusion.  

“These companies raise the bar for cultural excellence and the ability to adapt to meet changing needs of employees,” says Sheridan Orr, Chief Marketing Officer, Built In. “The 2021 winners show a commitment not just to creating meaningful cultures but to delivering talent needs as they change in a dynamic landscape. We’re thrilled to extend our congratulations to the winners.”   

Tech professionals rely on Built In’s Best Places to Work lists to discover employers that align with their preferences, passions and values. Since its inception three years ago, the award has expanded in reach, from online views of tens of thousands to just under 1 million views today. 

About Built In

Built In, a revolution in tech recruitment, serves more than 1,800 innovative companies of all sizes, from startups to the enterprise, delivering content and digital recruitment solutions that work. The platform amplifies companies’ brands as national, local or remote employers of choice, as well as leaders in DEI. Monthly, 2.5 million tech professionals rely on Built In to stay up on trends, grow in their roles and discover companies with missions they want to join. The platform publishes stories about companies’ tech, culture and people. This activates sought-after professionals to apply to customers’ open roles. 

About Built In’s Best Places to Work 

Built In’s esteemed Best Places to Work awards, now in its third year, honor companies across numerous categories: 100 Best Places to Work, 50 Best Small Places to Work, 100 Best Midsize Places to Work, 50 Companies with the Best Benefits and 50 Best Paying Companies. Two new national categories reflect what candidates are searching for, including 100 Best Large Companies to Work For and 50 Best Remote-First Places to Work.  

Best Places to Work: Methodology

Built In ranks companies algorithmically based on compensation information, benefits and culture programs. This year, based on data showing tech professionals’ needs, the Best Places to Work algorithm added weight to companies’ commitment to DEI and remote culture. Rank is determined by combining a company’s score in each of these categories.

About Attunely Inc.

Attunely is a proven, compliant, and trustworthy machine learning platform that makes the recovery of receivables easy, seamless, and profitable thus improving outcomes for creditors, lowering risk in the credit ecosystem, and facilitating a better consumer experience.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Industry leader in AI-powered digital communication payment recovery solutions, Remitter USA Inc, has today announced that Dave Snow will be joining their dynamic executive leadership team as Vice President of Sales. He joins Remitter with more than 10 years of experience across the consumer finance and accounts receivable industries, having served in senior sales, business development and leadership roles at Spruce Finance, Counterpointe SRE and TrueAccord. 

Dave is an inspiring leader who is committed to delivering solutions that work for consumers and businesses alike. In 2017, Dave founded American Energy, an innovative provider that delivers solar solutions to homeowners across California. Immediately prior to Remitter, Dave helped develop and grow the sales department at TrueAccord as their Senior Director of Sales. 

Remitter is rapidly scaling as it meets the demands of a hyper-growth organization. Dave will play a critical role to help achieve Remitter’s targets by leading an expanding sales team,  accelerating sales in a thriving market, expanding Remitter’s presence in new geographies, developing new channels and taking a leading role in refining marketing and business strategies. 

“I am excited to have Dave join us as our VP of Sales”, explains CEO Larry Chaivaro. “Dave’s track record of developing markets and attaining unprecedented results by building a cohesive sales team within multiple industries is a perfect match for Remitter as we roll out our full suite of products to lenders in North America.”

Dave is joining Remitter at a pivotal time as they strengthen and expand their offerings to enterprises that are continuing to shift efforts from analogue to digital customer support. “As our clients work through the impact of the pandemic and prepare for the next few quarters of increased delinquencies, they are seeking out scalable and flexible consumer-centric solutions,” said Founder, Simon Scalzo. “Remitter is dedicated to meeting these challenges by delivering  a proven platform, technical expertise and client support to fuel increased digital collections for our clients.” 

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About Remitter USA Inc.

Remitter is a white labelled digital communications platform powered by artificial intelligence that helps lenders maximize revenue by reducing delinquencies and increase payments by optimizing customer engagement. At the core of Remitter’s success is its proven ability to lift recovery performance using predictive and heuristic behavioral data to provide consumers with personalized experiences.

MT. LAUREL, N.J. — 2020 was an incredible year for our company, with lots of challenges but also many positive investments in people and technology.  As we move into 2021, it’s time to focus our efforts on growing our business and that first step is to unite our 3 brands under one name going forward.  We are the same great company, with the same great people and service.  But rather than going to market as SRA Associates, North Shore Agency (NSA), and Ceteris Portfolio Services (CPS), which has created confusion for our clients and their customers, we are uniting the brands under SRA, which we’ve been operating under since 1993.

SRA will continue to be a premier nationwide Accounts Receivable Management (ARM) firm providing our clients with creative, forward-thinking end-to-end accounts receivable management solutions.  Our clients will benefit from working with a growth-oriented firm, focusing on creating industry-leading, modern solutions.  

We are excited to return to our roots and are invigorated to grow our business with you in 2021.  Again, we are the same great company, with the same great people and service.  Only our name is changing!   We look forward to a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2021!  If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to our Chief Sales Officer Tim Smith at tsmith@sranow.com.

In the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals footprint (including Indiana), a system must randomly or sequentially generate numbers and dial them in order to qualify as an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). But you’d never know it reading the decision in Friend v. Taylor Law (N.D. Ind. Dec. 18, 2020).

In Friend, a court denied summary judgment to a law firm that was collecting a debt owed to its client. The law firm’s representative testified that it used the LiveVox system but wasn’t sure how it worked. He testified that he “believed” the system lacked the capacity to dial automatically as a predictive dialer. The Court found that the Defendant’s belief regarding the system’s ability to dial automatically was insufficient to merit summary judgment and instead decided to send the issue to the jury.

So what’s wrong with that?

Well, just about everything.

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In the first place, it is Plaintiff’s burden to prove ATDS usage. Once a Defendant challenges ATDS usage at the motion for summary judgment phase, it is the Plaintiff’s burden to come forth with evidence sufficient to raise a jury question on the issue. The Defendant’s equivocal testimony may not be sufficient to prove the lack of ATDS usage, but it is certainly — especially standing alone — insufficient to prove that a system with the capacity to operate as an ATDS was used. So there was no triable issue created. So the Defendant should have won.

Aside from the procedural misstep, there is a clear disconnect here with respect to the substantive law. Again, under Gadelhak, it does not matter if a system can call “automatically” or not. What matters is whether the system has the capacity to dial randomly or sequentially. Yet the Friend court never analyzed that issue and seemed to assume that any automated dialing is sufficient to trip the statute. As the Friend court summarized the law, an ATDS is “equipment which has the capacity” to store and dial numbers in certain ways.

Umm, yeah. But those “certain ways” an ATDS must dial are not merely “automatically” but rather “using a random or sequential number generator.” The Court nonetheless concludes that the evidence is unclear on whether “[Defendant’s] agents make calls with software capable of automated dialing…” and denies judgment to the defendant.

The Friend case is a true outlier. The focus was on the wrong substantive determination and the evidentiary burden was placed on the wrong party.

ROCKVILLE, Md. — The iA Innovation Council (IC or Council) announced today that it has appointed a Steering Committee to guide its priorities and activities during 2021. Launched in 2017, the IC is a membership group for organizations that understand their future depends on thinking differently and being at the forefront of communications, analytics, payments, and compliance technology.

The Innovation council is a carefully crafted forum where senior operations, technology and other leaders can build trust and collaborate to solve current challenges, and to learn about trends that are likely to impact their organizations in the future. It’s a strictly non-sales environment where we focus on “what if? vs. why not?”

We take a collaborative approach to identifying points of friction and solving challenges across the lifecycle of interaction with customers. Members work together throughout the year to build relationships, benchmark progress, and even establish business partnerships. 

We address the latest innovations that can affect growth and profitability, such as:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Consumer Experience
• Data Transformation
• Frictionless Payments
• Identity Management
• System Interoperability

The Steering Committee meets periodically to ensure the Innovation Council addresses the most impactful topics in a way that leads to deeper relationships, solutions and progress.

We are proud to announce that the 2021 Steering Committee includes:

• Josh Allen, CEO, Tratta
• Jason Collins, COO, Spring Oaks Capital
• Scott Ferris, CEO, Attunely
• David Friedlander, President, Healthcare Revenue Recovery Group, LLC
• Peter Ghiselli, Consultant
• Carl Harkleroad, CEO, Imagined.Cloud
• John Kelan, Sr. Director of Operational Strategies, Hunter Warfield
• Kristyn Leffler, Director Digital Strategies, Resurgent
• Michael Meyer, Chief Risk and Innovation Officer, MRS BPO
• Amy Perkins, President, The iA Institute
• Dan Womack, Sr. Director, Software Engineering, Ontario Systems

Stephanie Eidelman, CEO of The iA Institute and Chair of the Innovation Council, added “I couldn’t be happier to welcome this group of thoughtful professionals to help shape the Council for 2021. In spite of the competitive environment we live in, this group shares the belief that addressing big challenges can only be accomplished through collaboration. I look forward to diving into 2021!”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Receivables Management Association International (RMAI) is pleased to announce two significant milestones for its Receivables Management Certification Program (Program):

• The Program finished its eighth year in 2020 with 476 certifications, a record number and a 25% increase over the prior year. All certification categories—which includes debt buying companies, collection agencies, collection law firms, brokers, service providers and individual professionals—saw year-over-year growth.
• In December 2020, Tag Process Service, Inc. became the first RMAI certified process server. Tag Process Service, Inc. earned the Certified Receivables Vendor (CRV) designation in RMAI’s newest certification category for service providers. Additionally, Tag Process Service Inc. CEO Dave Rolf earned the Certified Receivables Compliance Professional (CRCP) designation.

“RMAI’s goal for our certification program has always been to create a homogenous program that spans all business types within the receivables industry. We are proud to welcome Tag Process Service, Inc., as the first certified process server,” said RMAI President Jim Mastriani.  All Certified businesses and individuals agree to voluntarily maintain the same type of rigorous standards and be subject to the same independent third-party auditing,” added Mastriani.

“Compliance monitoring is expensive. By adopting a holistic approach through certification, we believe we can reduce unnecessary costs for many of our members,” said RMAI Executive Director Jan Stieger.

Additional information on the Program can be found here.

Search for RMAI Certified Businesses here.

Search for RMAI Certified Individuals here.

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About Receivables Management Association International:

Receivables Management Association International (RMAI) is a nonprofit trade association representing more than 570 companies that purchase or support the purchase of performing and nonperforming receivables on the secondary market. The Receivables Management Certification Program and Code of Ethics set the global standard within the receivables industry due to rigorous uniform industry standards of best practice which focus on the protection of the consumer. More information about RMAI is available at www.rmaintl.org.

Volume II of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB or Bureau) Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law Report contains 102 of the Taskforce’s recommendations, arranged alphabetically into 19 areas. At 100 pages, it’s a brisker read than Volume I, which clocked in at 600 pages. We’ll look at each topic and cover the highlights.

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A reminder: this is a report of recommendations to the CFPB, not mandates or recommendations from, (although they may become mandates at some point in the future if acted on by the Bureau’s director). 

Alternative Data

The Taskforce is interested but worried.

Alternative Data are pieces of consumer information not traditionally incorporated into a consumer’s credit report: rent payments, for example, or utility bill payments. Deepening the pool of information available to creditors can help both the creditor and the consumer. So, as far as that goes, the Taskforce is for it.

The concern is the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Alternative data providers typically have not had to worry about the FCRA, because they have not been seen as a furnisher by credit reporting agencies. But the Taskforce believes someone needs to double-check that, because they might be, and that is significant.

Recommendations:

1. Eliminate undue/unnecessary restrictions on who can report.
2. Because the data is useful.
3. Make the whole thing easier, and especially 18 U.S. Code § 2702 – Voluntary disclosure of customer communications or records. That’s in the section on Crimes & Criminal Procedures. Specifically, though, in this case, it’s just changing it to allow providers of electronic communications services to the public to furnish account information to CRAs.

Bureau Organization

The report is a little introspective here. At first, the organizing principle for the Bureau’s structure was its tools: regulation, enforcement, supervision, research, and consumer education.

The concern, though, was that when you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

So, the Taskforce is recommending that the Bureau organize itself around markets instead. For example, “credit cards, mortgages, small-dollar loans, FinTech, and third-party service providers (such as debt collectors and mortgage servicers).” In this way, the Bureau can allocate its resources better.

Recommendations:

1. Reorganize!
2. Coordinate operations across the Bureau, and add a “competition and consumer protection advocacy” function.

Competition

The Taskforce looked at competition in several different ways:

• The Bureau’s effects on competition
• Cost of credit
• Facilitating competition in bank accounts
• State licensure
• RESPA settlement service packaging

Recommendations:

In addition to protecting consumers, the Bureau should make sure it is also protecting competitive markets.

1. More money to researching competition.
2. Look at “threshold effects” when establishing those thresholds on larger market participants.
3. Establish regular studies of the cost of lending.
4. Better understand cost structures across markets.
5. Make it easier for people to change banking institutions, which will promote competition.
6. Are creditor licensure laws necessary?
7. “States should consider eliminating or streamlining licensing requirements for providers of financial services to avoid anticompetitive barriers to entry.”
8. Remove regulatory barriers to allow guaranteed prices on settlement services and mortgages.

Consumer Credit Reporting

This, the Taskforce also broke down into sections:

• Rulemaking and interpretative issues (they spend awhile on this)
• Research issues
• Security freezes
• Legislation

1. Recommendations:
2. Clarify obligations of consumer reporting agencies (CRA)  and furnishers w/r/t disputes.
3. The Bureau should look at the FCRA, specifically the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) interpretations, and adopt those.
4. And while they’re at it, update and revise the FCRA’s summary of consumer rights, notice to furnishers, and notice to users.
5. The Bureau should assess credit reports for accuracy and completeness. (This ties into Alternative Data above.)
6. Look into consumer reporting issues specifically that arise from bankruptcy.
7. Cap class action damages for FCRA suits.

Consumer Empowerment

This really focuses on the CFPB’s mandate to assist consumers with financial education.

Recommendations:

1. Understand how to intervene with consumer education better.
2. “The Bureau should continue to experiment and conduct research on how to operationalize the normative goals of its 2015 Report on financial well-being.”
3. Establish a method of continually testing the consumer education products they produce.
4. “The Bureau should create a new program analogous to its Tech Sprint program around financial education at financial institutions and in the private sector generally.”
5. Look into the effects of student loan debt.
6. Reward, in some way, young consumers for their financial literacy.

Cost-benefit and Bureau Activities Analysis

The report splits this up into several sections:

• Regulatory cost-benefit analysis
• Evaluation of Bureau activities
• Retrospective examination of the Bureau’s impact

Recommendations:

1. Work on accountability and transparency.
2. Regularly review its cost-benefit analyses.
3. Conduct or sponsor work to monetize reductions in risk that better protect consumers.
4. “The Bureau should involve staff responsible for conducting regulatory CBA in the development of the regulation at the earliest possible point in the process.”
5. Include inclusion and credit availability as part of any cost-benefit analyes as appropriate.
6. “The Bureau should supplement the performance metrics its developed for the GPRA with additional metrics that track the general health of the markets they regulate.”
7. Research and evaluate the benefits and costs of supervision and enforcement activities.
8. Case retrospectives to examine costs.
9. And retrospective research on the effects of Bureau regs on consolidation of financial institutions.

Deposit Accounts

Focuses on the un- and underbanked. This section is also critical of payday loans.

Recommendations:

1. Expand access to the payment system by unbanked and underbanked consumers.
2. Speed up payments clearance system.
3. Continue following an amended Reg D.

Disclosures

The Taskforce splits this up into several sections:

• Regulatory principles for disclosures
• Credit advertising rules
• Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) adverse action notices
• Disclosures in electronic transactions
• Marketing to consumers with limited English proficiency
• Research needed

Recommendations:

1. Focus shopping disclosures on reducing the cost to consumers of locating the product or service they want.
2. Disclosures mandated by Congress and the Bureau should consist of only the minimum information consumers need to make an informed decision and to verify they received the product terms promised.
3. The Bureau should only issue disclosure-related rules guided by research into what information is important to consumers.
4. Revise credit advertising disclosure requirements in Regulation Z.
5. Amend Reg B: adverse actions
6. Amend Reg B: notification of adverse action
7. Develop a foreign language disclosure scheme.
8. Look into the availability of information.

Electronic Signature and Document Requirements

Required disclosures in the E-Sign Act can be more than 1,000 words long, and take two to eight minutes to read. Or several irritating seconds of scrolling if you’re just trying to get to the end and say yes. So, the Taskforce thinks Congress needs to replace or revise E-Sign.

Recommendations:

1. Eliminate E-Sign’s antiquated requirements.
2. Define what a “reasonable demonstration” is to show that a consumer can access info in electronic records.
3. Consider what the phrase “in writing” means, and maybe update that.

Emergency Authority

A lot of this document was written in 2020, when the pandemic started. The Taskforce realized it had no way to make things easier for consumers to access financial services.

Recommendations:

1. The Bureau should be able to suspend or modify specific provisions during a declared emergency.
2. Explore the preemptive powers the Bureau has over states.
3. Implement automatic policy responses.

Enforcement

The Taskforce separates Enforcement into several sections:

• Enforcement guidance
• Civil penalty assessment standards

Recommendations:

1. Issue a policy statement on the concept of consumer harm.
2. Adopt a public statement on how it will determine appropriate consumer restitution and civil penalties in matters.
3. Reconcile the civil penalty and consumer redress authorities of the prudential regulators, the Bureau, and the FTC.
4. Issue “Enforcement Highlights” (similar to their “Supervisory Highlights”)
5. “The Bureau should not set new standards for industry practices in settlements of enforcement actions, especially regarding practices deemed unfair or abusive. Instead, it should use its rulemaking authority to ensure that all affected parties have an opportunity to express views through notice-and-comment rulemaking and provide relevant data.”
6. Adopt the 1998 FFIEC Interagency Policy Regarding Assessment of Civil Money Penalties
7. Adopt and publish a civil penalty matrix.

Equal Access to Credit

This section is broken out into several points:

• Discrimination based on disability
• Modernization of Regulation B
• Disparate impact
• Enhanced antidiscrimination protections in auto finance

Recommendations:

1. Think about amending ECOA to include disability as a prohibited basis group.
2. Modernize Regulation B.
3. Issue a rule that sets forth the standard it will apply to disparate impact (including whether it is the same as the Inclusive Communities standard) and how it will apply that standard.
4. Address future concerns about credit discrimination in pricing by auto dealers.
5. Evaluate auto dealers’ compliance with ECOA, keeping in mind legitimate reasons a dealer may vary the APR.
6. Amend the Commentary to Regulation B to provide that good-faith implementation of the Fair Credit Compliance Program or comparable program constitutes one method of preventing discrimination in pricing credit offered by retail sellers.

Financial Inclusion

In this section, the report explains the necessity — and complexity — of making sure financial products are offered to more consumers, while at the same time managing the risk some financial products have for lower-income people, as well as the un-/underbanked.

The Taskforce broke Financial Inclusion down into several points:

Expanding credit unions’ ability to seve under-served areas

• Barriers
• Card Act Reform
• Costs to provide financial services
• Competition to promote access
• Areas for further research

Recommendations:

1. Allow all credit union charter types to serve underserved areas given the potential to increase inclusion.
2. Consider Dodd-Frank effects on inclusion, access, and choice.
3. Facilitate creditor access to credit report information about recent immigrants and to translate that information so that credit information from their financial lives prior to arrival in the United States can be used in credit decisions.
4. Analyze all costs related to the CARD Act
5. Consider the repeal of the restrictions on marketing credit cards to consumers age 21 and under.
6. Repeal the CARD Act’s restrictions on fees for unsecured subprime credit cards.
7. Research Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) laws and Bank Secrecy Act effects on inclusion and access to credit.
8. Repeal the provision in Section 1075 of the Dodd-Frank Act that imposes price controls on debit card interchange fees.
9. Explore mechanisms, identify barriers, and make appropriate recommendations to Congress and other regulators for expanding access to the payments system by non-bank providers.
10. Conduct research and develop policies tailored to the unique challenges of formerly incarcerated people.
11. Conduct further research and develop policies designed to address the growing problems of financial inclusion in rural communities.

FinTech Regulation

Here, the Taskforce recognizes that regulatory uncertainty and unnecessary regulatory costs prohibit FinTech innovation.

Recommendations:

1. Authorize the Bureau to issue licenses to nondepository institutions that provide lending, money transmission, payments services.
2. Consider the benefits and costs of preempting state law in some specific cases in which the potential for conflict can impeded provisions of valuable products and services.

Privacy

While the Traskforce seems focused on expanding the accessibility of financial products to more consumers, it is also deeply aware of privacy issues inherent in all financial products.

Recommendations:

• Seek regulatory solutions that control the possibility of harm to consumers rather than relying on disclosure.
• Enact a law authorizing national preemptive standard for data breach notifications adopted by a relevant regulatory agency.
• Study the effectiveness of GLBA privacy notices to ensure that information is relayed in a manner that is useful to consumers

Regulatory Coordination

Financial institutions with CFPB oversight are also subject to regulation by other federal and state regulators. The Traskforce sees value in coordinating the regulation efforts among these entities, if for no other reason than to clean up confusion and bring clarity.

Recommendations:

1. Continue to identify and focus on opportunities to coordinate regulatory efforts.
2. Increase dialogue with state regulators to bridge knowledge gaps and streamline regulation.
3. Work with other agencies to create a unified regulatory regime for new and innovative technologies providing services similar to banks.
4. Work with the FTC to explore opportunities to streamline jurisdiction and enforcement of consumer financial protection regulation of third-party financing offered at automobile dealerships and other retail sellers.

Regulatory Principles

The Taskforce here considers the pros and cons of highly specific regulations versus flexible principle-based standards. The section almost, but doesn’t quite, suggest that the Bureau needed to start out strong and intractable when it was first enacted, but that there is space, and necessity, for a reexamination of those principles.

Recommendations:

1. Apply a principles-based regulation wherever possible, with sufficient flexibility for crises and change.
2. Use plain language and be easy to understand.
3. Clarify regulations with appropriate guidance.
4. Build upon its process of ongoing review of existing rules to identify regulations that may be outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them in accordance with what has been learned.
5. Evaluate and streamline, as appropriate, the process by which questions that come throughthe Office of Supervision Examinations, the Office of Regulations, the Office of Innovation, and other policy-interpretation areas of the Bureau are shared with other parts of the Bureau so that guidance can be consistent and shared publicly.
6. Continue to support and encourage the development of its No-Action Letter, Compliance Assistance Sandbox, and Trial Disclosure Sandbox programs.

Small Dollar Credit

Small dollar credit isn’t going away. As the Traskforce writes, “Many of the reasons cited by customers for using small-dollar loan products are intractable or will not change based on anything the Taskforce can recommend here.” Since small dollar credit is here to stay, primarily because of its effectiveness in meeting the needs of consumers with poor credit, low income, and other hurdles, it’s an area the Taskforce feels should be top of mind when looking at ways to bolster consumer protections in these affected communities.

Recommendations:

1. Research how much small dollar credit use and potential associated consumer harms are caused by delays in payment processing and to support regulatory efforts to adopt a faster payments system.
2.  Exercise caution when setting interest rate caps when implementing regulations on small dollar credit loans.
3. Reconsider, update, or eliminate usury laws as appropriate, recognizing the high costs they impose by denying valuable services to consumers who need them.
4. Conduct recently announced research on payday loan disclosures with an eye toward making sure consumers understand what they are signing up for, rather than prescribing normative disclosuresdesigned to influence consumer behavior.

Supervision

This is divided into several smaller sections:

• Defining a “larger participant”
• Leveraging technology in examinations
• The role of Compliance Management System Review
• Appeals of exam findings and ratings
• Examining for Military Lending Act (MLA) compliance

Recommendations:

1. Consider conducting automated or data-based examinations.
2. Focus its supervision activity on financial institution compliance with the consumer protection laws.
3. Maximize supervisory impact by redirecting resources from grading a CMS to expanding the scope, depth, and frequency of examinations, especially for covered institutions that may not currently be on an examination schedule.
4. Change its current supervision appeal process to increase fairness and consistency.
5. Revisit its larger participant rules to assess the cost and benefits of the rules in conducting effective supervision and promoting consumer protection.
6. Grant the Bureau explicit authority to conduct examinations specifically intended to review compliance with the MLA.

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Remitter USA Inc, industry leader in AI-powered digital communication solutions used to improve payment recovery, is thrilled to announce that Larry Chiavaro will head up its impressive executive leadership team as Chief Executive Officer. 

Mr. Chiavaro is a dynamic sales and business development executive with over 30-years’ experience in identifying and developing growth in the consumer finance industry. Most recently, Larry was the Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of First Associates Loan Servicing / Vervent, building the company into the largest 3rd party consumer loan servicer in the U.S. from 6 employees to over 800, and successfully selling to a private equity firm in July 2019. Larry retired from First Associates/ Vervent in September 2020.

Larry has also held leadership positions for Household/HSBC Auto Finance, NovaStar Mortgage and GE Capital, where Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of General Electric, recognized him for his record-setting production. Additionally, Larry regularly advises fintech companies and makes strategic investments globally through his Advisory Company, LPC Associates LLC, and moderates over a dozen conference industry panels per year.

“We are looking forward to welcoming Larry to Remitter, especially with his experience in leading a results-driven team and business,” said Founder, Simon Scalzo. “Larry is well versed in what our clients want and need, which will be critical knowledge in the coming quarters as lenders work through the impact of the pandemic and prepare for increased delinquencies”, he explains. “Our clients are seeking scalable and flexible consumer centric digital self service solutions and Remitter is dedicated to meeting these challenges by delivering a proven platform, technical expertise and client support to fuel increased digital collections.” 

Reflecting on his appointment, Larry said: “I am honored to have been selected to lead this truly unique and innovative company and share the Remitter solution to my friends and their organizations in the consumer lending space. We have a great team, strong capability in the market and clear strategy that I’m confident will enable us to continue our rapid growth.” 

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About Remitter USA Inc.

Remitter is a white-labeled digital communications platform powered by artificial intelligence that helps lenders maximize revenue by reducing delinquencies and increase payments by optimizing customer engagement. At the core of Remitter’s success is its proven ability to lift recovery performance using predictive and historical behavioral data to provide consumers with personalized experiences.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Capital Accounts, LLC, a leader in the healthcare receivables industry, today proudly announces the additions of W. Judd Peak as its new Chief Compliance Officer and Scott E. Martin as its new Chief Technology Officer, both based in the company’s Franklin, Tennessee corporate headquarters.  Mr. Peak and Mr. Martin join Capital Accounts in a period of rapid growth and expansion of the coast-to-coast operations in healthcare collections.  

Mr. Peak brings two decades of experience to Capital Accounts as its new Chief Compliance Officer.  In this role, he is responsible for the creation, implementation and continual oversight of the enterprise-wide Compliance Management System (CMS).  He will oversee and ensure the organization’s compliance with federal, state and local laws and regulations, covering healthcare revenue cycle, accounts receivables management and consumer payments.  Before joining Capital Accounts, Mr. Peak served as Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel for the Nashville-based Frost-Arnett Company.  Mr. Peak has lived and worked in the Nashville, Tennessee area most of his professional life, and attended Vanderbilt University for both law school and business school.  

Mr. Martin graduated from the University of Missouri with degrees in Physics and Mathematics.  After graduation, he embarked on a successful technology services career where he developed deep expertise in technology infrastructure management, software engineering, and information security.  Mr. Martin went on to successful tenures in varied industries, including Black & Veatch Engineering, Spring Corporation, Bass Pro Shops, Dean & Deluca, and Dollar General Corporation.  Mr. Martin joins Capital Accounts as the Chief Technology Officer, where he will lead the effort to fully modernize the Capital Accounts platform, focusing on standards-based infrastructure and information security “best practices” while growing in-house skills expertise.  

Based in Franklin, Tennessee, Mr. Martin spends his free time raising his daughter, Megan, and has a son, Jack, who is a freshman in college.  Mr. Martin is also a private pilot and accomplished musician.  

“The profusion of knowledge, experience and compliance expertise that Judd brings to Capital Accounts is a complete game-changer,” says Gregory Nowicki, Principal of Capital Accounts.  “Judd is a leading-edge practitioner and innovative compliance leader.  These qualities will directly enhance our commitment to our clients and our product offerings.  

“Scott has proven experience in building and shaping the technology agendas and will bring that experience to our innovation strategy at Capital Accounts, ultimately helping us make our customers and our relationships more successful,” Mr. Nowicki continued.  “It has been fantastic to begin working with Scott in his role at Capital Accounts, and I am pleased to bolster the technological expertise in house with his appointment.”  

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About Capital Accounts, LLC

Capital Accounts, LLC was founded in 2003 and is a leading pioneer in the healthcare receivables industry.  Using a proprietary accounts receivables platform and implementing technological solutions, it is poised to continue expansive growth and be an industry leader for years to come.

Yesterday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released the report issued by its Taskforce on Consumer Financial Law. The report consists of two volumes and clocks in at 700 pages combined. Volume 1 consists of a scholarly analysis of the consumer financial law sphere, while Volume 2 focuses on 100 recommendations that the Taskforce makes to the Bureau’s Director. Debt collection makes an appearance in Volume 1, but none of the recommendations specifically focus on debt collection. However, some of the recommendations might be of interest to industry members. Over the next two days, we’ll provide detailed summaries of related sections. Below we discuss the four major areas where debt collection appears in Volume 1. Tomorrow in Part 2, we’ll go over the related recommendations.

The intricate web of debt collection, consumer protection, and the overall impact on consumers

Section 6.2 of Volume 1 contains a comprehensive analysis of the interplay between consumer protection laws and regulations and consumer benefit/detriment, painting a picture of a sliding scale that requires a delicate balance. The Taskforce rejects a “zero-sum” approach to regulation — i.e., that deregulation will help industry and harm consumers, whereas more regulation will harm industry and help consumers in equal but opposite amounts — and instead states that there is a sweet spot that must be met or else the laws and regulations will simultaneously both help and harm the most vulnerable consumers, causing a problematic quagmire.

The debt collection market is given as an example. High-risk consumers are intended to benefit most from strict laws and regulations because they curb how debt collectors interact with consumers. However, at the same time, overly-restrictive laws and regulations increase the cost of recovery for creditors, which increases the cost of lending for creditors who in turn increase the threshold for consumer loans and credit. The end result is that the same consumers who are intended to benefit from the strict laws and regulations end up being the ones who have reduced access to credit.

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Consumer choice and the perceived lack thereof in regards to debt collectors

Section 6.2 also touches on an often-raised critique that consumer advocates have against the industry: that consumers don’t get to pick their debt collector. The report acknowledges this and notes that the ability of a consumer to jump to a different company’s service if they are unsatisfied with the current one leads to market competition, which in turn leads to market self-regulation.

However, the report’s analysis shows that it’s not as one-sided as this consumer advocate argument would make one think. The report notes that consumers might not recognize the debt collection agency contacting them, but they will recognize the creditor on whose behalf the debt collector is working. This creates — indirectly — a similar reputational risk to the creditor as if it were collecting its own debts. The result? Creditors typically heavily govern and oversee how their debt collection partners interact with consumers.

Private rights of action are not always the best solution

Section 6.2 also discusses the impact of private rights of action and how these are not always the best solution for consumer protection. For one, it puts the onus on the consumer to act, find a lawyer, and go through the legal process. And, more interestingly for the ARM industry that deals with a cottage industry of plaintiffs’ counsel, the report states that class counsel often take advantage of low threshold statutory damages — such as the $1,000 statutory damages of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) — to drive up their fees.

Regulatory challenges with the FDCPA

Section 9.2.2 discusses the regulatory challenges associated with the FDCPA, specifically as it relates to the statute’s age. On one hand, some principles of the FDCPA — such as not using false or misleading tactics to collect debts — are timeless. However, other sections of the FDCPA cause conundrums and difficulty in adapting to modern communication methods.

The first example given by the report relates to voicemails, which the CFPB tackles in its final debt collection rule (Regulation F). The report discusses how the FDCPA requires debt collectors to reveal that they are debt collectors and attempting to collect a debt when communicating with consumers. However, leaving a voicemail with such information risks third-party disclosure if the message is overheard by someone other than the intended recipient. The courts had a hard time grappling with this issue and issued decisions with mixed — and sometimes inconsistent — results. This uncertainty caused risk-averse debt collectors to stop leaving voicemails, which in turn led to more calls placed to consumers in an attempt to reach them.

The other example given is in regards to email, another topic the CFPB addressed in Regulation F. The report states:

In its initial outline of proposals under consideration, the Bureau analogized an email to an envelope containing a letter, such that the outside of an email (the “from” and “subject” fields) would be subject to similar limitations on language as the outside of an envelope. By the proposed rule stage, however, the Bureau appeared to analogize an email to the letter itself—that is, the password to access the email account functioned like the protections afforded to a consumer’s postal mailbox, and an email sent to the correct address could contain all the same information as a letter addressed to the right consumer. Thus we see the challenges that regulators face when attempting to stay true to outdated statutory language while also predicting what interpretation may achieve the best ends for consumers and market participants.

Part 2: The Taskforce’s recommendations

Tomorrow, iA will publish an article that goes into detail about the industry-related recommendations presented by the Taskforce’s report.