CreditFix agrees to drop IVA fee increase

ABCUL has welcomed the decision by CreditFix to drop a £84.12 fee across its entire IVA portfolio – an action would have provided the company with up to £7million in additional income.

Despite temporary measures being put in place to ensure that anyone in an IVA could access a three month payment holiday and reduce payments when needed, CreditFix announced plans to subject each of its 86,000 portfolio of IVAs to a full review. Last week ABCUL met with the firm’s CEO, and urged them to rethink this proposal. ABCUL has also been in discussions with the Insolvency Practitioners’ Association, the firm’s regulator, to urge them to put a stop to this action. We now understand that the firm have cancelled this weeks creditor vote, and  plan to review the position.

ABCUL’s CEO, Robert Kelly, has welcomed this news: “At a time when everyone’s adjusting to a difficult new reality, and some very challenging decisions are being made, it was a step too far for credit unions that insolvency firms might be able to use this as an opportunity to profit. We appreciate CreditFix’s willingness to listen to us this time, and we sincerely hope that this decision will become a permanent one. This really does demonstrate that the reforms that we’ve been calling to the regulation of the insolvency profession are more urgent than ever”.

ABCUL has written to the Insolvency Service and, alongside the Building Societies’ Association, to the Insolvency Minister Lord Callanan, to urge the Government to introduce an independent regulator and to remove the exemption of insolvency firms’ from FCA oversight.