International debt collection: How the EOS Cross-border Center works.

Romina Rosiello-Ene helped to establish and develop the EOS Cross-border Center: “Of course, international debt collection is nothing new,” she says. But in many places, receivables management is very labor-intensive and complicated. “You need to determine where the debtor is, then find a local partner to take over the case. You also need to send files and ensure that you comply with the statutory regulations of each country,” she continues. That involves more effort than some companies are capable of or even want to make. “This is why many companies ultimately give up on their receivables.”

With the help of the EOS Cross-border Center, these creditors no longer need to write off their debts, because the Center substantially reduces the work involved in receivables management by finding permanent partners in each country, like Raymond Pappot in the Netherlands, and through a technical innovation, the “EOS Global Collection” online portal. 
This is where the local partners of the creditors can enter all the relevant information about a case: name and address of the defaulting payers, amount of receivable and interest, invoices and reminders, and entire files. Using a country code, the platform automatically passes the case on to the relevant specialist in the country concerned, who then recovers the debts locally. This allows EOS partners and customers to follow the progress of a case in real time, from acceptance of the collection order to completion of the recovery process.

“The greatest conflicts in international debt collection occur due to cultural differences and different mentalities,” says Romina. “Collection agents working in international recovery therefore need to be sensitive to these aspects.” This is why in the platform they also have access to a lot of useful tools that are important for local knowledge, like the ‘Global Wiki’, which lists the legal specifics, peculiarities and ‘good to knows’ for many countries. “We only enter into an alliance if the partner is prepared to work with the platform,” says Romina. “It is the very keystone of our work.”

To ensure that the interaction between the various countries works smoothly, EOS has developed quality standards for its partners. The Cross-border Center makes sure that they know and adhere to these standards. The center offers the partners advice and support and hosts webinars, workshops and training programs all over the world. This means that even those cases that previously seemed futile can still be resolved. One such example is SkyToll, a supplier of on-board units (OBUs) for toll collection in Slovakia.

Truck drivers using Slovakian freeways need to pay tolls. They carry a toll device on board (OBU) that records their route and calculates the tolls. Payment is made afterwards. The problem is that a lot of freight forwarders do not pay their invoices, and recovering the receivables is often complicated, as 70 percent of SkyToll customers come from other countries, primarily from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. To get the money back from all these places single-handedly is a mammoth task. For years, SkyToll had to simply watch its outstanding invoices pile up. The company’s financial situation was deteriorating. And at some point, it was obvious that this situation could not continue. SkyToll needed help from an experienced service provider to collect the money from the defaulting payers, and it opted to work with EOS KSI in Slovakia.

In 2015, EOS took over about 16,500 SkyToll cases, many of them up to two years old. “It was an endeavor that even SkyToll itself did not have much faith in at first,” says EOS KSI Head of Sales Peter Hettes. “SkyToll found it hard to imagine that we would manage to recover the outstanding debts.” But the results exceeded expectations, as 40 percent of cases were successfully resolved. “Today, SkyToll is one of our best cross-border customers,” says a delighted Peter.