ABFA

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

Summary of the Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA) meeting

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One of my contacts told me that the highlight of the annual factoring jamboree currently being held in Barcelona was a lecture by a couple of Americans on mezzanine finance in which they appeared to have little grasp of what the subject was that they were lecturing on with each of them often contradicting the other when he had made a mistake in his presentation.

It would seem that the number of representatives from factoring companies was dwarfed by the huge delegation from the world of insolvency as they utilised the opportunity to try and butter up the factors all in one place

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.