NCO Group, Inc. based in Horsham, Pennsylvania, is a business process outsourcing

Business process outsourcing

Business process outsourcing is a subset of outsourcing that involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of specific business functions to a third-party service provider. Originally, this was associated with manufacturing firms, such as Coca Cola that outsourced large segments...

company (BPO company) that provides accounts receivable management (ARM), customer relationship management (CRM) and back office solutions for its clients. Founded in 1926, it was a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: NCOG) from 1996 through 2006, when it was purchased by One Equity Partners (OEP), the private investment arm of JP Morgan Chase & Co., and other co-investors. Although a privately held company, NCO still files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as it issues public debt.

NCO employs approximately 30,000 people in over 100 locations around the globe, through its many subsidiaries, including NCO Financial Systems, Inc., NCO Customer Management, Inc., Transworld Systems, Inc., University Accounting Services LLC, and Systems & Service Technologies, Inc., among others. In 2008, NCO acquired a large ARM competitor, Outsourcing Solutions Inc. (OSI). In 2010, NCO reported total revenues of $1.6 billion.

Services

NCO is a business process outsourcing (BPO) provider that offers accounts receivable management (ARM), customer relationship management (CRM) and back office solutions across multiple vertical markets, including financial, education, government, healthcare, and retail among others. These services include – but are not limited to – first and third party collections, customer acquisition, direct sales, customer care, product and technical support, systems integration utilities, loan servicing, social media monitoring and analytics, text messaging and web chat services, third party verification, back office support and call center consulting.

NCO contact centers are located throughout the world, including in North America, Central America, Europe/Middle East/Africa, Asia/Pacific, and Australia. These locations support over 40 languages.

Subsidiaries

NCO has many subsidiaries providing various services across multiple markets. A partial list is found below:

Subsidiary	Services
NCO Financial Systems, Inc.	Accounts Receivable Management, Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management, Attorney Network Services
NCO Customer Management, Inc.	Customer Relationship Management
University Accounting Services, LLC. (UAS)	Works exclusively with student loans
Transworld Systems, Inc. (TSI)	Accounts receivable management
Systems & Services Technologies (SST)	Third-party receivable servicer
NCO Financial Services, Inc.	Accounts Receivable Management in Canada

FTC Ruling

In May 2004, NCO agreed to settle a claim for violations of the U.S. Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and pay a fine of $1.5 million to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This claim was related to the FTC’s review of NCO’s delinquency date reporting under section 623(a)(5) of the FCRA, primarily related to a large group of consumer accounts from one client that were transitioned to NCO for servicing during 1999. NCO received incorrect information from the prior service provider at the time of transition. NCO became aware of the incorrect information during 2000 and removed the incorrect information from the consumers’ credit files prior to the FTC claim. Section 623(a)(5) has since been amended by Congress to eliminate the liability that was the basis for the claim. NCO has maintained, and continues to maintain, that it has complied fully with section 623(a)(5) of the FCRA.