Sophos has released its 2022 ransomware report based on real-world IT professionals’ experiences last year, across mid-sized organizations in 31 different countries. The study concluded that the number of attacks is up, with increasing complexity and impact. About 2/3 of organizations involved in this study indicated that they were hit by ransomware in 2021, which represents an increase of 78% over the previous year. Ransomware works by encrypting a company’s data so they cannot access it until they pay the ransom. The success rate of these attacks increased to 65% of organizations having the data encrypted as a direct consequence of the attacks, from 54% in the previous year. Lastly, 4% of the victims experienced an extortion-only attack where data was not encrypted but there was a threat to expose the data publicly.

Here’s another opportunity to join in the awesome charitable work that is such a cornerstone to many of our industry’s businesses and professionals! Receivables Roundtable Founder, Adam Parks talks with Nancy Hughes of Connect1, LLC and Brooke Teal of EverChain about their ten-week fundraising campaigns for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Man & Woman of the Year is a philanthropic competition to support blood cancer research in the United States. Our industry boasts not just one, but two candidates this Spring! For you West Coasters, Nancy Hughes is running her campaign in San Diego, CA. For the East Coast crowd, Brooke Teal’s campaign is based in Atlanta, GA.

Learn more and join a team (or both!) at mwoy.org. If your company makes a donation, be sure to let us know! Learn more using the links below.

Brooke Teal - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brooke-teal/

EverChain - https://www.linkedin.com/company/everchaincorp

This was originally posted by Receivables Info with Adam Parks on March 14, 2022. Check out the links below to learn more.

Watch the video HERE.

This article was published in Cornerstone's newsletter on April 19.

Table of Contents
5 TIPS FOR MITIGATING RISK WHEN BUYING DEBT
1. Strategy
2. Segment
3. Security
4. Due Diligence
5. Post-Sale
5 OBSTACLES THAT PREVENT CREDITORS FROM SELLING DEBT
1. Perception of Risk:
2. Lack of Resources:
3. Lack of Due Diligence:
4. Lack of Transparency:
5. Lack of Benchmarking Data:
5 REASONS WHY CREDITORS SHOULD SELL DEBT: THE PROS
1. Why Sell Debt?
2. Why Use a Broker?
3. Why Oversight and Compliance?
4. Why Technology?
5. Why Now?

On April 19, 2022, The Financial Technology Report announced the Top 25 Financial Technology CTOs of 2022 and EverChain is excited to share that our Chief Technology Officer, Renato Marteleto was named #13 to the list!

If you are like most consumer lenders, you know a portion of your loan portfolio will default. As a creditor, there are three things you can do when a customer fails to pay their debt:
1. Collect: Attempt to collect internally or Assign to a law firm or third-party collection agency
2. Sell: Sell the defaulted account and add revenue to your financial bottom-line
3. Nothing: Consider it a cost of doing business and write off the loss.

By Matt Grossman and Matt Wirz
Originally Posted on April 11, 2022 in the WSJ, download the PDF or view the full article here.

Demand softens for bonds backed by loans from riskier borrowers, along with shares of fintech consumer-lending companies. Investors are growing more skittish about bonds backed by consumer debt, worried that inflation and slowing growth will increase the number of low-income borrowers falling behind on car payments or credit card. Buyers of bonds backed by subprime car loans or credit cards are demanding the highest premiums over interest-rate benchmarks since mid-2020. Meanwhile, investors have punished shares of some financial technology companies that helped fuel a recent surge in consumer borrowing, such as Affirm Holdings and Upstart Holdings.

When lenders decide to sell their debt, they have options. Many choose to use a broker because they don't want to invest in the staff and the technology it would take to compliantly sell debt directly to a buyer. Sure, you could hire the staff, train them, and implement the technology – but that's a big lift. Because it's not just the technology expense upfront, but it's an ongoing expense to ensure that your technology doesn't just meet the needs of today's regulatory environment, but tomorrow's as well. You pay a broker a fee to cover the transaction, but it does not include compliance oversight – that still lies with you as the original creditor. 

The customer journey does not stop at default. Recovery is part of the overall Customer Experience and plays a key role in client satisfaction and retention.

Join EverChain’s Certified Debt Buyer Network and gain access to the largest selection of portfolios for sale anywhere. Scale your purchasing power and dramatically reduce your cost of acquisition. Becoming a Debt Buyer with EverChain is a game changer for those who want to optimize their recovery efforts and ensure they are doing it compliantly.

We sat down with EverChain's AVP of Business Development, Mike Walsh, who joined our team about a month ago. We wanted to understand the "Why" behind his choice to join EverChain and get his initial impressions from Month One.