Debt collectors leveraging smartphones, QR codes to streamline payments

Debt collectors, trying to balance mounting regulatory and judicial pressure on one end and a surge in demand on the other, are beginning to turn to new technologies to aid their collection practices and tactics. Smartphones and QR codes are just two examples of this trend. QR codes are small printed images similar to barcodes that can be labeled on virtually anything and scanned by a mobile device for additional information. Some debt collection agencies are beginning to include QR tags on debt notifications to allow for easy and seamless management of payment plans and schedules. "While adoption rates may be small to start with, any tool that can help accelerate the payment and make it as easy as possible on the debtor to make a payment will yield positive benefits in the long run," writes Mike McDonnell for Inside ARM. Smartphones themselves are also developing new mobile banking and payments technologies that allow users to transfer funds among accounts or process transactions directly. As technology continues to evolve, experts expect reporting and debt collection functions to develop as well.