I had to smile whilst reading the so called “Receivables Report Intermediary Index” today when looking at the various category award winners as one of them is about to become the centre of quite a bit of unwelcome media attention this year due to it’s appalling treatment of clients coupled with a love of termination fees.

It’s not surprising that this factoring company ranks well as the “panel” that voted comprised a number of Insolvency Practitioners (reading between the lines) and this factor is renowned for it’s love of Administrators

Another has been brought to my attention on more than one occasion in the last six months for it’s quite unethical behaviour towards certain clients whilst a third has lost more clients than it has gained in the last year due to it’s poor service levels.

There is no way that I would introduce companies to any of those three but there are actually two on the list that I quite happily deal with although they will never come top in the rankings as they don’t “sponsor” editions of the journal

As a matter of interest no members of The Independent Factoring Brokers Association were involved in the compilation of this index

Silly season must have come early as elsewhere a list of half a dozen “ethical factoring companies” has recently been published which includes two that don’t have much of a track record and aren’t actually traditional factoring companies at all whilst another has only been trading for five minutes and has just a handful of clients.

Whilst I have nothing against any of the three and indeed actively deal with one of them I’m not sure that it’s helpful to draw up a list of ethical factoring companies that only includes three recognized factors plus three from the fringes.