The second largest non-performing loan management company in Greece, Intrum headed by George Georgakopoulos, has come under the scrutiny of the Bank of Greece’s (BoG) regulators.
The news was confirmed by a senior executive of the Swedish parent company, in a statement to Bloomberg.
Sweden’s Intrum “has no problem with the Bank of Greece,” company spokeswoman Kristin Andersson said via email, adding that the business being conducted is a regular audit. “As far as we know there are no significant findings,” Anderson added.
Another source from the same agency confirmed the audit, as part of the central bank’s investigations into debt collection companies operating in Greece, in order to determine whether they comply with the rules of domestic legislation.
For the company in question, there have been complaints in Greece over previous years for bad practices in the management NPLs portfolios.
The government has recently attempted to curb poor practices, recently pushing through a series of changes in the legal framework for debt collection and servicers companies, including the creation of stricter standards of conduct.
In addition to Intrum, an even smaller company, Thea Artemis Financial Solutions, is under the scrutiny of authorities.
According to Bloomberg, more companies are expected to face audits in the future.
The Bank of Greece and Thea Artemis declined to comment officially on the matter.
