Erwin Falkner holds a diploma in business law with a specialization in international law from the University for Business and Management in Essen. He is a native Austrian, owner and managing director of the collection company VYNTO GmbH & Co. KG in Germany and managing director of the collection service company DCG Portal B.V. in the Netherlands. He has over 23 years of experience in leading companies and associations in the debt collection and credit industry. Since 1963, his company has been a member of BDIU, the national German collection association.

New Vice President is Leigh Berkley, United Kingdom. He is President of the Credit Services Association, the UK’s national collection association, and Director of External Affairs & Development at Arrow Global, one of the country’s largest and fastest growing providers of debt purchase and receivables management solutions. Prior to joining Arrow Global in February 2015, Leigh Berkley was CEO and principal shareholder of respected collection agency and debt purchaser Tessera Credit Group LLP.

New General Secretary is Matija Arapovic, Croatia. He is a managing director of Prima Solvent, the largest local Croatian company, board member of Prima Bon, a company for credit reports, and President of the Croatian debt collection association since 2007. He has more than 17 years of experience in debt collection and the credit report industry. Matjia Arapovic holds a diploma in engineering from the University of Zagreb as well as a diploma in management from Henley Business School.

Piotr Badowski, Treasurer, Poland, and Rayna Mitkova, Board member, Bulgaria, whose positions did not stand for election this year, complete FENCA’s new board.

The election was part of FENCA’s World Congress, which took place in Berlin from September 21 to 24. More than 200 experts from the debt collection sector from Europe, North America, Asia, Arabia, Israel, India and North Africa learned about the newest trends in the industry and gave an outlook into the future, where digitalization and globalization will be major influences for the work of debt collection managers.

An important topic on the agenda of the newly elected FENCA board will be a pan-European Code of Conduct for debt collection.

Next year, FENCA will meet in September in Sofia, Bulgaria.