The United States Treasury and the World Bank Treasury have successfully co-hosted the International Retail Debt Management Symposium on April 26th, 2018 in Washington, DC. The symposium is sponsored by the International Retail Debt Management Conference (IRDMC) core countries and held biennially. The core IRDMC membership includes Brazil, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
This year’s Symposium brought together 12 countries with seasoned retail programs and those looking to establish or review existing programs. The Symposium provided a forum for debt managers to discuss current issues and trends such as product development, distribution channels, market research, and use of new technology.
2018 Symposium topics included (i) update on the retail debt programs: new countries, new products and latest programs, with specific emphasis on how the expected broad-based cyclical upturn and increase in interest rates may impact retail debt programs and the elasticity of the demand for retail debt instruments to the level of interest rates; (ii) adapting to changes in investors/customers’ needs; (iii) designing a successful marketing strategy to reach to targeted customers; (iv) linking of retail programs with debt management strategies; (v) the use of modern technologies applied to retail programs including potential import of cryptocurrencies.
