One of the oldest collection agencies on the market, YUSB Center, is put up for sale

The collection agency “Center YUSB”, operating in the collection market since 2003, is one of the oldest, put up for sale. This year, the company completed all agency agreements and closed the only regional office. In fact, the company sells the FSTEC license and a place in the FSSP registry “without a negative trace.” In addition, the YUSB Center has technologies and competencies in the collection market.

One of the oldest collection agencies on the market YUSB Center is looking for a buyer. This was reported to Kommersant by several sources in the recovery market. Information about the search for a buyer is posted in specialized Telegram channels. According to Kommersant’s interlocutors, YUSB Center can be valued for sale within 23 million rubles. Such an assessment is due to the fact that, in fact, a license for collection activities is being sold.

The YUSB Center Agency was founded in 2003, and in 2016 it was included in the register of the Federal Bailiff Service (FSSP). The company specializes in agency collection (the bank does not sell the debt, but leaves it on the balance sheet, transferring the rights to the agent), worked both with the debts of individuals and with receivables. At the end of last year, the agency collection market amounted to 734 billion rubles, including banks and MFIs. In 2023, the company terminated all agency agreements.

Development Director of YurPartner Alexander Fedorov (headed the YUSB Center until 2015) said that this company has unique collection methods, including extensive experience in working with debts of legal entities. “Center YUSB” in addition to effective recovery provided quality customer support, without causing any complaints, he says.

Now the company offers, in addition to the FSSP license, a perpetual license from the Federal Service for Technical and Export Control (FSTEC) and a perpetual license for the Contact software.

According to Alexander Fedorov, the company is of interest not only in terms of competencies, technologies and team, but also in terms of reputation. In the FSSP register, the company is in the “green” category. In the spring of 2021, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, which supervises the FSSP, proposed assigning collectors various categories of risk of harm: high, significant, medium, low. Appropriate changes were proposed to be made to the “Regulations on federal state control (supervision) …”. Despite criticism from the professional community (see “Kommersant” dated April 26, 2021), the changes were accepted. The new evaluation criteria have been applied since the beginning of 2022. Last year, the FSSP received 2.3 million complaints about the actions of claimants. Almost 210,000 complaints were found to be justified. At the moment, 5% of the collection market participants are in the “red” and “yellow” zones, that is, they are classified by the regulator as a high and significant risk category (see “Kommersant” dated March 29).

“The major players in the market may be interested in buying a “green” license as a backup license,” Mr. Fedorov is sure.

“Such proposals cannot be called frequent. As a rule, lots are companies that have received a license, but have not been actively involved in their activities,” says Elman Mehdiyev, president of SRO NAPCA.

It is not so difficult and long to obtain a license to conduct collection activities, the interlocutors of Kommersant agree in the opinion on the collection market, on average, the FSSP considers documents for entry into the register in just 20 days.

But the recovery market has long ceased to be a segment where you can quickly turn a profit without knowledge and technology, Elman Mehdiyev admits. “Now only high-tech companies can do this, and this is only possible if the business invests in technology,” continues Mr. Mehdiyev. succeed.”

The entry of a new strong market participant “is possible, but, as in any financial business, it all depends on the level of investment and the business model that is supposed to be implemented,” the expert concludes.

However, Kommersant’s interlocutors in the recovery market doubt that the practice of buying spare licenses can be cost-effective: the formalities of switching to a new legal entity can be more complicated and longer than obtaining a new license. However, such cases may be of interest to large players who have established themselves in the “red” zone of the FSSP.

Polina Trifonova, Ksenia Dementieva