FENCA Declaration on COVID-19
Berlin, 22 April 2020
On behalf of the European credit servicing and credit purchasing industry, FENCA would like to express its support to the European institutions, businesses and citizens in dealing with the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Not only the health and wellbeing of all of us, including the people we hold dearest, are threatened, but also our social lives have come to a halt.
Beyond that, we see and feel the negative economic effects on the financial markets, on businesses large and small in all sectors, on self-employed people and freelancers, and on private citizens all over the EU.
For all FENCA Members and their member companies the basis and guiding principle for any debt collection activities has always been the fair treatment of persons who find themselves to be in arrears or are over-indebted. Persons who are in debt are often vulnerable, and for FENCA members it has always been the aim to find the best possible solutions for individual cases – where possible, even in collaboration with debt advice services.
These guiding principles are coming into even sharper focus for us in the current crisis.
In many EU member states governments have put in place emergency legislation to help and protect companies and private citizens by, among other things, providing financial aid or bridging loans, as well as by setting up moratoria on payment obligations, amending insolvency procedures, and other provisions.
FENCA fully supports these efforts and holds them to be right and necessary to protect the countless people in need because of the effect of the COVID-19 crisis.
At the same time, we would also like to emphasise that these measures – as important they are right now – are in place only temporarily and only for as long as this crisis lasts. They should not be used to prevent the collection of rightful claims permanently.
After all, the success and speed of the economic recovery for enterprises, SMEs, self-employed people and the economy at large will not least depend on the possibility for creditors to responsibly reclaim monies they are owed.
FENCA and its members will reach out to stakeholders and do everything to contribute to the restart the economy and to help pave the way to return to normality for the well-being of European companies and citizens.