Invoice discounting

Government to get involved in invoice discounting ?

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According to an article in the Financial Times yesterday the Government is supposedly looking at the possibilities of getting involved in invoice discounting in the hope of boosting the supply of credit and working capital to the hard hit SME sector.

 

It would seem that the favoured method would be for the Government to extend it’s guarantee facility to cover invoice discounting facilities from the major banks and apparently the Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA) have been involved in these discussions.

 

Banks have been shoving many of their customers down the factoring and invoice discounting route for several years as not only are the rewards higher but the security is better as invoice discounting is fully secured by the invoices that are being funded and a properly managed invoice discounting company shouldn’t need a Government guarantee to enable them to offer funding facilities.

 

If this turns out to be true it will be an unusual step by the ABFA to lobby for guarantees that will only be of use to some of their members but which will give them a huge advantage over the others.

 

Watch this space

Increase in the number of factoring brokers expected in 2009

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With factoring companies like Bank of Scotland having pulled up the shutters to new business and laid off their sales staff and others like GE Commercial Finance and GMAC just marking time the employment market is being inundated with factoring salesmen looking for jobs. Those few employment agencies that specialise in recruiting for factoring companies have more CVs on their files than ever before but unfortunately there aren’t any vacancies to fill.

The salesmen with proven track records will probably end up with one of the few vacancies that will be occuring in the near future whilst the rest will either leave the industry or try their hand at broking. I fully expect to see an upsurge in inexperienced factoring brokers this year and would suggest that anyone looking at factoring or invoice discounting should enquire a little more deeply than normal into the credentials of their chosen broker and perhaps even make sure that they are members of the Independent Factoring Brokers Association

 

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GMAC stave off bankruptcy

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It was announced in the final week of 2008 that GMAC had won US approval to have banking status in a move that should help the company stave off bankruptcy. This is of interest to us as they are the parent company of GMAC Commercial Finance, a company that was once the market leader for factoring and invoice discounting in the UK but which seems to have lost it’s way since Lloyds TSB sold it in the late nineties.

GMAC Commercial Finance appear to have put up the shutters for new business some time ago but if the parent company have any cash left from the interest free loans they are providing to Americans to persuade them to buy GM cars, perhaps they might once again become active in the UK factoring and invoices discounting markets

Cut in base rate probably of no help to factoring clients

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Today’s 1% cut in base rate to 2% will probably have negligible effect on SME factoring and invoice discounting clients as firstly many of the providers have already moved over to LIBOR as a charging rate and secondly many of those who have remained on base rate will have minimum base rates included in their agreements and these could well be 4% or 5% so any factoring client on 3% over base could still be paying 8% pa

Time to dust off those factoring agreements and check the wording

The factoring industry is closed this week

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Not much will be happening this week at senior levels in the factoring and invoice discounting industry as the ABFA (the industry’s trade association) is having it’s annual jolly conference and all the great and good in the factoring industry will be attending.

Where else would the self styled “UK based trade association” be having their conference in these austere times but Barcelona 🙂

 

It should be an interesting conference as more than one member of the ABFA isn’t writing any new business at the moment but at least one member might usefully save some money by combining the conference with a trip to Bank Santander to discuss takeover terms in what is probably the worst kept secret in the factoring industry.