One of the more high profile growth products in the invoice finance industry is the use of invoice trading platforms which is a form of invoice finance that is becoming better and better known thanks to the intensive PR efforts of one of the major players.
Of the two major players I far prefer the Platform Black operation to that of Market Invoice as the company is run by experienced factoring professionals who are available to speak to if there are any queries or questions whereas as far as I can gather Market Invoice is run by a sophisticated piece of software and the customer service is all but non existent judging by the complaints received from dissatisfied users who have tried it but prefer the offerings of companies with people that they can talk to.
Invoice trading online, a disaster waiting to happen?
I have often thought that invoice trading platforms are a disaster waiting to happen as very little (if any) due diligence is done on the invoices being sold by at least one of the major players and if any invoices become uncollectable it isn’t the trading platform that will suffer as it’s not their money anyway but it’s the investors who will lose out as they invariably have no in depth knowledge of the background or validity ofo the invoice that they are funding.
Platform Black have come up with a rather novel concept by offering to underwrite the first 10% of any losses suffered by an investor which I think is as admirable as their comment that they should “man up and put some skin in the game” is absolutely dreadful.
The fact that they are claiming to have only suffered one bad debt in the last 15 months is testament to the benefit of having the company run by factoring professionals even if they seem to have the PR skills of a Chicago rapper.
Long may this continue.