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Credit Industry Forum News

 

Last year saw the birth of the Credit Industry Forum a group of interested parties who were invited by the National Credit Regulator to meet (once a month or so) to discuss possible improvements to and issues in regard to debt review. The CIF replaces the former DRAC or Debt Review Advisory Committee.

Last year the CIF met for the last time in mid December. Their next meeting is scheduled for the end of February 2014.

December’s meeting saw the members agree on what, exactly, the Credit Industry Forums Charter actually is. The meeting also saw the creation of 3 separate sub committees which will report back to members at the February meeting with some recommendations for consideration.

table

The Next Meeting

The February meeting will have reports from the sub committees in regard to:

 

1) The former NCR Task Team report from back in 2010 in it’s current context

2) The differences between what the PDA software calculates and reports to Debt Counsellors and Consumers and what Creditors have on their systems

3) Withdrawing from the Debt review process before all the debt is paid off. A recent court case brought to light that the NCA is actually not clear on if and how this can be done.

 Binding?

Since some Debt Counsellors and Creditors are not represented by attending members the NCR has undertaken to try inform as many concerned parties as possible through emails and reports and calls for comment. This is very important since, though the CIFs recommendations to the NCR are not binding on the industry, the NCR are going to do their utmost to try force these decisions on the industry and have even threatened sanctions against those who will not comply. It is unclear how they will do so but supposedly this is their intention. It sounds a bit ominous.