Pioneer and Premiere Credit Top ED Contract Performance Race in July

The two top performing collection agencies in the second quarter on the Department of Education’s student loan collection contract continued their winning ways in the first month of the third quarter, notching the highest scores among the 17 accounts receivable management firms on the contract.

Premiere Credit was the top performer on the small business contract and Pioneer Credit Recovery had the top score on the unrestricted contract in July. The two companies also won the quarterly performance competition for the second quarter.

In the month, Pioneer collected $22 million for ED, the most of any collection agency. Pioneer leads all agencies on the contract with $559.3 million collected over the 41 months of the contract.

Allied Interstate and Diversified Collection Services took the second and third place positions on the unrestricted contract in both total amount collected and performance score with $16.1 million and $15 million collected respectively.

ED’s monthly scores are based on a weighted average of performance metrics, including total dollars collected, total accounts serviced and administrative resolutions.

Premiere collected $5.6 million in July and received the top score among small businesses, although Continental Service Group (Conserve) collected more money at $5.7 million. Conserve leads all small business contractors with $133.9 million collected over the life of the contract.

The current student loan collection contract, which has 17 collection agencies actively working ED accounts – 12 on the unrestricted contract and five on the small business set aside — will expire on March 31, 2009. A new contract is expected to be awarded in September of this year.