Survey Reveals Adoption of Online Portals Top Technology Trend for 2017

For the first time in the five-year history of the survey, online portals surpassed live agents as the most popular payment channel, with card payments and ACH payments ranking as the most accepted methods. When asked about technology plans for 2017, adoption of online portals ranked first at 32%, closely followed by IVR at 28% and virtual debt negotiation at 23%.

The results once again confirmed the biggest challenged faced by most ARM firms is compliance. The importance of PCI compliance outranked concerns around CFPB enforcement and Regulation-E. Unsurprisingly it followed that the importance of choosing a PCI compliant payment processing partner remained the top priority for the second year running.

Client expansion was the primary focus of respondents. Interestingly, the number of agencies accepting HSA/FSA payments has significantly increased from 33% in 2016 to 43% in 2017. Through accepting HSA/FSA payments as an authorized third party to healthcare providers, agencies can facilitate payments for both past due and current medical debts incurred by patients.

However, the number of respondents planning on adopting a convenience fee model has dropped, with 44% of ARM organizations having no plans to implement fees in 2017.

“Having collected ARM Industry data for five consecutive years, we continue to see significant technology adoption changes within collections,” said Dave Yohe, VP of Marketing at BillingTree. “As payments and technology continue to evolve – these results, combined with the remainder of the survey series later this year, will provide collection agencies, healthcare providers, credit unions and property management companies with unrivalled insight to help them prepare for technology opportunities while remaining compliant.”

To request a complimentary copy of the 2017 ARM Industry Operations, Technology & Payments report visit: https://start.mybillingtree.com/acton/media/15831/2017-arm-survey-report