Collection companies are hedging margin pressures arising from increasing labour costs, regulatory limits, and lower recovery rates in two ways at once. Key tasks, such as customer service and administrative functions, are being handed off to business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, even as chat, voice, and compliance work for the same customers get routed to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) agents.
This has also led to a 10% higher rate of BPO adoption, hitting 53% in 2025, led by larger debt buyers, solidifying BPOs' role as an operationally stable pillar of debt collection, according to the TransUnion Debt Collection Industry Report 2025.
Mexico and Central American hubs capture a significant share of debt collection volume (17%), behind India, making nearshore a beneficiary of an industry shift in which repetitive tasks are automated while complex work is outsourced.