From May 5^th to May 6^th, SmithNovak hosted the NPL Europe 2022 conference at which Servdebt was present as a sponsor and as a speaker.

The event gathered 100 panellists, throughout 13 hours, to discuss how “the lending industry is headed into a perfect storm of adverse factors. A global recession. A supply chain crisis. The knock-on effects of the war in Ukraine and the related sanctions. The withdrawal of COVID support across every economy causing the failure of many businesses that were just holding on. Rising interest rates/inflation. With all of these factors, how could we not be seeing a spike in NPLs?”.

Luís Chaves, our Business Development Director, took part in the panel’s discussion focused on Portugal, which sought to answer the following questions:

• Moratoria and other measures were extended extensively in Portugal. What is the likely impact of this on NPL stocks and further provisioning? What is the current NPL ratio?
• How has the Portuguese Servicing market developed over the last two years? Have we seen the emergence of new players and new platform models?
• Has a Secondary market now developed in Portugal? What types of Investors are buying and which types of assets are being acquired?
• What volume of trade can we expect to see in Portugal in the next 12 months? What types of assets will come to market and how will these be serviced?

This 12^th edition attracted more than 400 delegates, from 200 companies, from 29 countries, including banks, investors, advisors, fund managers and debt collection agencies in the market. This conference, for many, represented “a first physical, in-person large-scale meeting, with the atmosphere at times feeling more like a celebration of business-as-usual”.