The European CMS market is governed in large part by national regulations. The lack of uniform rules for payments in the EU impedes the free movement of goods and services and therefore impacts economic growth.

Late payments often lead to bankruptcies and fewer job opportunities, especially for SMEs. The European Commission has estimated that late payments cause the loss of around 450,000 jobs a year. Several EU initiatives in recent years have attempted to harmonize rules for corporate collection and create simpler, faster procedures. In 2006 the EU Commission reviewed the directive from 2002 to fi ght late payments between companies.

In the EU, particularly in the UK though also in Germany and Austria, consumer indebtedness is growing rapidly. In the UK, household debt is now on par with the GDP. To curb debt problems, Intrum Justitia is trying to increase awareness of household indebtedness, including by providing decisionmakers with information illuminating the problems associated with excessive debt.

The target groups for these efforts can be found at both a national and EU level. This is why Brussels, as home to many EU institutions, is a natural base for Intrum Justitia's regulatory work, the purpose of which is to:

• Illuminate the problem of late payments. Late or non payment limits trade between EU member states and thereby impedes economic growth. Intrum Justitia is working to put the problem of late payments high up on the EU's agenda for economic growth, the so-called Lisbon Agenda*.
• Identify laws and rules that prevent or complicate the work of independent credit management fi rms such as Intrum Justitia. Europe is still burdened, for example, with monopolies that prevent professional credit management companies from freely competing in the same market. Not only do monopolies lead to higher prices and poorer services, they may even violate the EU's basic principle of free movement of goods and services.
• Represent the credit management industry and provide input to the EU Commission on various legal proposals. Intrum Justitia has responded, for example, to a draft circulated on a new European Payment Procedure and European Payment Order (EPO).
• Promote the legal right to charge fees for late payment throughout the EU.
• Another important issue is how computer-based information on the credit ratings of consumers and businesses can be put to better use.

* The Lisbon Agenda is an action and development plan established by the European Council in Lisbon in 2000 to make the EU the most competitive and dynamic knowledgebased economy in the world by 2010.