Complaints Against Debt Collection Agents Employed by Authorized Institutions

Our Ref.:

B1/1C
B9/67C

23 November 2007

The Chief Executive
All Authorized Institutions

Dear Sir/Madam,

Complaints Against Debt Collection Agents
Employed by Authorized Institutions

I write to inform you of the results of the industry survey on complaints against debt collection agents (DCAs) employed by authorized institutions (AIs) for the third quarter of 2007. Please see the Annex for details.

During the reporting period, 39 of the 197 surveyed AIs used the services of DCAs. They together assigned 80,557 accounts to 23 DCAs.

A total of 25 complaints against 10 DCAs were received by 12 AIs (compared with 26 complaints against 12 DCAs received by 10 AIs in the previous quarter). The incidence of complaints per 1,000 accounts assigned was 0.31 compared with 0.33¹ in the previous quarter. No complaints were lodged by unrelated third parties, compared with four cases in the previous quarter. No instances of breach of the Code of Banking Practice were reported during the quarter.

Yours faithfully,

Simon Topping
Executive Director (Banking Policy)

c.c.

The Chairman, Hong Kong Association of Banks
The Chairman, The DTC Association
Secretary, Code of Banking Practice Committee (Attn: Ms Florence Hui - HKAB)
Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury (Attn: Miss Clara Chan)

1 Figure has been revised due to amendments made by an AI.

Annex

Survey on DCA complaints received by AIs - Q3/2007

Table 1: AIs using DCA service

Table 2: Number of DCAs employed by AIs

Table 3: Incidence of DCA complaints

Table 4: Status of complainants

* Figures of previous quarters have been revised due to amendments made by an AI.