Almost all of them.
We were approached by a company last week that was looking for a factoring facility and having read our website they were interested in our recommendations. The MD mentioned that he had already approached Cattles Invoice Finance on the basis that they were award winners to which my response was that almost all factoring companies were award winners somewhere or another.
Looking at the factoring and invoice discounting companies’ website I noticed that Cattles were proudly proclaiming to have won the Business Innovation of the Year award at the National Business Awards’ North West regional finals.
Moving onto Close Invoice Finance and they are claiming the Business Moneyfacts Best Factoring and Invoice Discounting Provider award for the third year running whilst Venture Finance are the winners of the Credit Today Factor Discounter of the Year for the second year running.
Perhaps the most amusing website is that of Bibby Factors where they are proud of the fact that they were voted best factor and discounter by NACFB 2003 2004 2005 2006 thus prompting the question “What happened in 2007 then”
In addition to the above I went to the annual Dealmakers Dinner late last year which included an awards ceremony and GE Commercial Finance managed to win the Dealmakers Asset Based Lending award of the year.
I have no doubt that the clearing bank factors have also won a shelf full of awards between them as I seem to recall that Lloyds TSB was the victor at the Dealmakers Dinner in the previous year.
Oddly enough we introduced the prospective client that started me thinking about awards to one of the few factoring companies that doesn’t seem to have won an award at all even though they consistantly offer an above average service at competitive rates.
Don’t forget the Midlands DealMakers dinner in September at which Asset Based Lender of the year went to Landsbanki. Champagne still bubbly when declared bust!
Perhaps the Independent Factoring Brokers Association should start to dish out their own awards as a “factoring company of the year” award voted on by factoring brokers that know a bit about the subject would produce results that had a little more validity to them than the current crop.
Landsbanki may well have provided an excellent service to their clients but there weren’t actually that many of them and I’ve no idea how many of them were in the Midlands anyway.
I was talking to someone from Bibby today who told me that he didn’t think that Bibby would win the NACFB award for factoring company of the year 2007 as they hadn’t sponsored enough events this time. 🙂
My buddy was wrong as Bibby have yet again won the coveted crown of NACFB factoring company of the year so they have obviously promised more sponsorship for next year.
Cynical moi 😀
The Factoring Solutions Wooden Spoon for 2008 is awarded to Bibby Factors Scotland who are by far the slowest payers of commissions of all of the factoring companies that we deal with.
As October and November invoices are still outstanding (relating to September and October commissions) I am wondering whether or not I should be looking at factoring my own debts.