I finally figured out today that where PNC refers to “Receipts...

I finally figured out today that where PNC refers to “Receipts from liquidations of PDPs” it means what CCP calls “Interest revenue from purchased debt ledgers”. Liquidations on its own seems to mean the discounted for time value of the PDLs, as opposed to their actual cost. This itself should not occasion a major difference in profitability relative to CCP, because the latter values its PDLs in much the same way. CCP may deliberately undervalue the assets at times to give itself a bit of fat to fall back on later.

CCP definitely buys PDPs from utilities, and CCP may not. If one buys lower quality PDPs, then I imagine one pays less for them, so this too should not be a significant differentiator. CCP obviously uses less debt, so that gives them less exposure to the mood of lenders. Both companies extol their expertise in analytics and collections, so it is not easy to say who has the edge.

Anyhow, I do not hold PNC, so I shall not expend more time looking into its fall from grace.