It is to assign the “ECC Score” to Italian and European companies operating in the credit management ecosystem in order to create the Atlas of the excellence of the various sectors examined.

Every year, for each sector participating to the challenge, the companies with the highest score will be awarded.

The ECC score is a complex and unique algorithm developed by Credit Village with the collaboration of the ECC scientific committee and indicates an objective judgment on the company ecosystem. A thermometer of the sensitivity of management and ownership of the KPIs analyzed and the company’s ability to evolve and maintain the acquired values over time.

The Challenge is annual and the deadline to complete the online questionnaire is July 31 each year.

However, if interested only in the score, the questionnaire can be completed at any time and the score will be valid for three years, this still guarantees the right to participate in the Challenge of the following year.

“Sector” and “compartment” are used as synonyms and indicate the 4 macro-areas: NPE Market, Collection, Credit Information and investigation, Innovation technologies and A.I.

By “category” we mean the micro-areas within the macros:

a) NPE Market

Within NPE Market, four categories will be highlighted and classified:

• Originator
• Investor
• Advisor; Rating Agencies
• Master and Special Servicer.

b) Collection

It has been divided into three categories:

• Early collection: Phone and Field
• NPE collection: Phone and Field
• Judicial collection.

c) Credit Info and Investigation

This segment has also been divided into three categories:

• Strategic Marketing,
• Credit Risk & Analysis,
• Private investigations for debt collection.

d) Innovation Technologies and AI

This sector has also been divided into four categories:

• Software platform (to showcase the best management software in the sector),
• A.I. – Artificial intelligence and predictive tools (to bring out the best available technology),
• Fintech (in order to give visibility to a collateral but highly relevant world for the credit sector),
• Proptech (because the world of Real Estate deserves a dedicated in-depth study).

The ECC score is valid for three years. If the company works to improve its score, it may, within a year of sending its application, modify the data entered in the portal to obtain a new score and compete in the challenge for the following year with the new score obtained.

Any company wishing to maintain its score for the duration of three years and make it visible within the Atlas published on the ECC portal may make an explicit request to coordinatorecc@creditvillage.it which will provide all the necessary information.

Given that having obtained an ECC score is already, in itself, an indication of an evolved and above-average company and that therefore, a company with an ECC score is a champion, whether or not it is publicised is up to the company itself.

The score can, therefore, be made public by the company that obtained it by allowing its publication on the ECC portal, publishing it on its website, letterhead, brochures, etc. for the three years of its validity. For more information contact coordinatorecc@creditvillage.it

The score, for each individual KPI, consists of 9 globes, which can be summarised as 3 stars (so 3 globes correspond to 1 star), the maximum ECC score obtainable for each individual KPI is 3 stars, while the minimum is 1 globe.
The overall value of the ECC score will therefore be the expression of the elaboration of the scores achieved on the 5 KPIs

There are five, namely

• ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance.
• Performance.
• Compliance and Certification.
• Brand positioning.
• Tech and innovation tool.

Certainly yes, obviously with different weights depending on how much they affect the relevant sector.

This is the simplest KPI to assess, since there are numerous assessment bodies on the market, each with its own score. On the ECC’s side, it will simply be a matter of comparing, with a trivial proportion, the ESG score obtained with one of these bodies with the ECC score.

For applicants who still do not have an ESG rating, Credit Village has made an arrangement with Synesgy, CRIF Group, to be able to quickly assess this parameter.

In the ECC portal, under the first KPI, ESG, you will find the link to access the Synesgy portal and proceed to the assessment.

It was decided to focus on drives that are common to all sectors, which can also be measured externally and are in any case objective indicators of the company’s success, such as

• the references of the customers themselves
• victories in contests, competitive tenders, certificates, public recognition as best performer by customers;
• the seniority of the customers themselves and their number;
• limited to the sectors “NPE market”, “collection” and “credit info and investigation”, the GBV and/or number of files handled.

The ECC-Committee will give due weight to the different items, given that while references may have a certain degree of difficulty to be issued, contest wins, competitive bids, etc. have a quite different one.

The retention time of a customer is also objectively indicative of the candidate’s degree of ability to maintain high customer satisfaction over time.

On the other hand, a young company, perhaps a very successful one, does not have the possibility of displaying such an index (being in fact young), and it is then balanced to refer also to the number of customers one has (in relation to the different sectors), which is in any case an indication of the candidate company’s commercial and market attraction capacities.

With regard then to the first three sectors in the competition, “NPE market”, “collection” and “credit info and investigation”, the volumes of GBV managed and/or the numbers of files processed are objectively significant performance data.

The term compliance is derived from the English expression “to comply with”, which means “to abide by certain well-defined rules”. While the noun ‘compliance’ simply means ‘conformity’. Entrepreneurial, managerial and professional activities have become more and more closely linked to compliance with the numerous technical – legal – accounting – safety etc. etc. rules. – that involve and permeate the aforementioned activities. Compliance is, therefore, primarily the development of a system for verifying compliance with technical standards and highlights a way of managing control that is substantially different from the traditional one, i.e. ex ante, rather than ‘ex post’.

With this in mind, in order to define the score, the ECC Scientific Committee opted to target the compliance and certification tools that the best practices of the competing sectors recognise as useful or indispensable.

For European candidates, the correspondents (where they exist) of the country of reference will be analysed as well as the specific legislation.

We will look at ‘certification’ issued by a competent body, which meets a set of internationally established standards.

Brand positioning is the process of defining the position that the services provided by the brand occupy in the minds of customers in order to distinguish itself from competitors and gain a competitive advantage.

For this KPI, the ECC Scientific Committee has created a list based on the reputation of the brand and its managers, taking into consideration only those drives that are able to associate positive and current values with the product, service, brand and organisation.

The development of technology is rapidly transforming the economy and society in which we live. Digital innovations and services change consumers’ preferences and spending habits, alter production and distribution processes, redraw the boundaries of companies and markets, and redefine the content and management of business processes. These innovations involve every segment of the banking, financial services and credit markets: payment services (instant payment), automated advisory services in asset management (robo-advisors), consumer and corporate credit (crowd-funding and peer-to-peer financing), virtual currencies (Bitcoin, etc.), decentralised transaction validation technologies (blockchain or DTL – Distributed Ledger Technology), support for credit analysis and evaluation processes (cloud computing and big data), innovation tools dedicated to collection and evaluation (cloud computing and big data), and the development of new technologies for the collection of credit (cloud computing and big data). ), decentralised transaction validation technologies (blockchain or DTL – Distributed Ledger Technology), support for credit analysis and valuation processes (cloud computing and big data), innovation tools dedicated to collection and judicial recovery (chat bots, call bots, AI, scoring, expert systems, etc.), asset valuation and optimisation through innovative tools (proptech)

In this KPI, the candidates’ adoption of the most effective and successful programmes and functionalities – including AI (Artificial Intelligence) and machine learning – across the entire credit ecosystem will emerge.

In addition to an initial list drawn up by the ECC Scientific Committee and experts, individual operators will be able to promote their peculiarities by self-nominating their own peculiarities and/or pointing out awards, recognitions, certificates from universities, organisations, trade associations, etc. that they have won, so as to highlight the innovative and technological features of their systems and processes.

Getting a score on even one KPI is an indication of the sensitivity of the management and the company and thus the company’s ability to evolve and maintain its values over time. The final score refers to the total score of all the KPIs.

An award will be given to the manager, out of all the sectors considered, that the ECC Committee deems worthy of mention each year, from the following professions

• Credit manager,
• Risk & Compliance manager,
• Collection manager,
• Asset manager,
• Portfolio manager,
• Due diligence manager,
• Reoco manager,
• Investment manager,
• Sales & Marketing Manager,
• Communication Manager.

The questionnaire link cannot be forwarded. However, you can print out the page of questions to make it easier to complete. In any case, for Score purposes, you will need to answer the questionnaire online

(Access via the link on the portal https://europeancreditchallenge.eu/)

The information you provide will be treated as strictly confidential. In case you are a listed company and cannot disclose certain information, please contact us at coordinatore@creditvillage.it for exclusive and dedicated support.

Participation in the challenge is free of charge.

The ECC is structured in three main stages:

• Completion of the online questionnaire on the portal (https://europeancreditchallenge.eu/), by candidates.
• Issue of the score certificate by the restricted ECC Committee (Committee of Wise Men), and eventual publication on the portal and on the ECC Champs, etc.
• Final evaluation by the ECC Committee with announcement of the Challenge winners.

The winners will be announced at the ceremony to be held at the conclusion of the annual Challenge, by 31 December each year. All information will be on the portal https://europeancreditchallenge.eu/.

Following the evaluation of the scores by the Committee of Wise Men and then by the ECC Committee, three finalists for each sector and manager will be identified.

The five winners will be announced at the event.

None. Participation is free of charge.