ABSTRACT
The clients of one of the several specialised debt collection agencies are always other debt collection agencies which have no cross-border debt collection departments. German debt collection agencies find their origin in the ‘business information agencies’ of the second half of the 19th century which commercially provided businessmen with the information concerning financial situation and credibility of their prospective commercial partners. Foreign individuals and legal persons who apply for a debt collection licence in Germany are generally subject to the same requirements as German nationals and corporations. The contents of such standard contracts are subject to the provisions of the German Standard Contract Terms Act, which protects the interests of the individual clients. The majority of foreign creditors served by the German debt collection agencies are from continental Europe. The several debt collection agencies collect both receivables of German creditors abroad and receivables of foreign creditors resident within Germany.
