Dear Sir/Madam,

I write to inform you of the main results of the industry survey on complaints against debt collection agents (DCAs) employed by authorized institutions (AIs) for the first quarter of 2006. Please see Annex for details. 

During the reporting period, 44 of the 195 surveyed AIs used the services of DCAs. They together assigned 157,691 accounts, representing an increase of 27% compared with the previous quarter, to 32 DCAs. The remaining 151 AIs did not employ any DCAs.

As the number of accounts assigned to DCAs increased, the number of complaints against DCAs received by AIs also increased accordingly. In the first quarter of 2006, 14 of the 44 AIs using DCA services received a total of 41 complaints against 14 DCAs (compared with 30 complaints received by 16 AIs against 12 DCAs in the previous quarter). The incidence of complaints per 1,000 accounts assigned increased slightly to 0.26 from 0.24 in the previous quarter. Three complaints were lodged by unrelated third parties, against two complaints in the previous quarter. Thirty AIs using the service of DCAs did not receive any complaints.

No instances of breach of the Code of Banking Practice were reported during the quarter as compared with one instance in the previous quarter. 

I hope you find the above information useful. I look forward to your continuous effort in monitoring the performance of the DCAs engaged by your institution.


Yours faithfully,






Raymond Li
Executive Director (Banking Development)