export factoring and export finance solutions

Factoring or invoice discounting in the UK is now being used by over 45,000 companies for both domestic and export sales, generating a combined turnover in excess of £190billion, according to statistics released by the Factors & Discounters Association. These figures are increasing quarter on quarter with significant increases coming from the factoring of export sales.

Most companies, assuming that all factoring companies are the same, take the simplest route signing up with the subsidiary of their clearing bank without first establishing whether or not there are more suitable options available but unlike most other financial facilities, export factoring is the provision of finance geared to a service and that service element is not only highly important but equally highly variable from one factoring company to another and in very general terms the big bank owned factors do not rank well in the service stakes.

The way that the factoring company operates and the quality of service that it offers is so important to a company that it can affect the financial health of that company and therefore selecting the wrong factor can have devastating effects as we will try to explain.

Despite the importance of selecting the right factoring company it seems that many companies using invoice finance to speed up cash flow still find their factoring company by looking in Yellow Pages - which is surely why there are so many factors beginning with the letter A - or asking their accountant or insurance broker, who's probable knowledge of the industry comes from the factoring company salesman who has most recently canvassed him.

It should be straightforward but in reality it isn't and as we have very real concerns with the way that some factoring companies operate we have set out details of the possible pitfalls in the following pages including such matters as "Why some factors appoint Administrators or Receivers to their clients" and "How some factors abuse the Minimum Annual Fee" to "Why some factors offer such a poor service" and "Why the cheapest quote often works out much more expensive in practice"