A big change in the factoring broker marketplace

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I was reading an article on the website of Independent Factoring Brokers Association about the different types of companies involved in the introduction of business to factoring companies with two of the growing forces in the broking market being online lead generators and insolvency practitioners.

The market leader in the generation of leads has been Xbridge who have traded under a variety of different names with Decision Finance and Simply Business being two of the most prominent as well as a number of finance portals allied to other well known names being used to generate leads too.

There have always been mixed feelings within the broking community of the value of Xbridge’s operation as with the best will in the world there is more to finding the most appropriate factoring company than filling in a few forms and being sent off in the direction of the cheapest quote.

Many of the factoring companies have also had concerns about the impartiality of Xbridge as they also maintain the website of the various Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance companies and the feeling in the market place is that this relationship has resulted in Lloyds TSB receiving the bulk of the enquiries for factoring and invoice discounting that have come through the various Xbridge sites.

For reasons that we can only guess at Xbridge have now divested themselves of the broking part of their operation which has been taken over by a third party so they will just be a lead generator in future.

The broking side will now be carried out by a third party which would be a good thing if that third party were not a firm of insolvency practitioners.

As a completely independent specialist factoring broker I like to think that we give impartial advice and introduce our clients only to the most appropriate factoring company for their needs whereas the insolvency practitioner led broking outfits are primarily in the business to obtain lucrative insolvency work from the factoring companies and there is always the feeling that the client would be introduced to the factoring company that would more suitable for the broker and not the client.

Time will tell

Factoring and invoice discounting for prescription charges

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One of the bank owned factoring companies not normally associated with innovation will be announcing a scheme later this week specifically geared to the funding of prescription charges which should prove to be useful to pharmacists and healthcare professionals who have to wait quite a while for re-imbursement from HMG

Funding will be available up to 95% of invoice values.

For further details please contact Factoring Solutions on 01827 707680 or via their website www.factoringsolutions.co.uk

Venture Finance ownership

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Venture Finance was unwittingly caught up in the problems surrounding Fortis as Fortis had supposedly acquired them as part of the carve up of ABN Amro but had then been told to divest themselves of the ABN assets as part of their own rescue by various Governments.

Venture Finance remains part of the ABN Amro group which in turn is now owned by the Dutch Government so we are pleased to see that their foundation is now secure.

Wageroller in Administration

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Administrators have been appointed to Quest 4 Finance Ltd who operated the Wageroller facility. Whilst never wholly convinced enough about the payroll funding facility to actually introduce any business to the company it is still sad to see their demise as the product was fairly innovative.

Davenham Group Problems

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Less than a year after Davenham rejected an £84m takeover bid at £3.25 per share an announcement that record bad debts will wipe out any profits has seen the share price tumble to just 8.25p

The company has taken measures to react to changing circumstances by making a large number of staff redundant whilst employing more people in it’s arrears department but there are still concerns that the problems that originate in the property division might impact on the factoring and trade finance divisions.

Davenhams have some niche products for financing the SME sector including a stock finance facility that is quite innovative and we would hate to see that plunging property values will affect the company’s ability to continue increasing it’s presence in the factoring arena