It conerns a client, a small manufacturing business, that were recently able to assist by finding them a factoring facility with a single fee, no minimum fees and a short termination period. For more details and to read the case study please follow this link:

Case Study – Single Fee Factoring, No Minimums, Short Termination Period

The members are all from within the factoring and invoice discounting industry or other professions closely associated with it.

If you would like to join the group there is a link at the bottom of the right hand column on the blog. For more details about the UK Invoice Finance Research Group and some examples of its online discussions please see the Research page of this blog.

You will also notice that I have just made some changes to the blog itself, improving some of the navigation and adding more information about Factoring, Invoice Discounting, Invoice Finance and the various Awards that we have received.

Glenn Blackman the Managing Director of Cashflow Acceleration said “We are delighted to once again be “Commended” in the category of “Asset Based Finance Broker of the Year”, it reflects well on a year when we have continued outperform many businesses within our sector, despite tough conditions. My thanks goes to our team and all the clients and finance partners that voted for us. The awards dinner was once again truly excellent and I would also like to thank Business Moneyfacts for all their efforts in organising such a fantastic event“.

Follow the link for full details of the Business Moneyfacts Awards winners

The report highlights the lack of awareness of factoring and invoice discounting products amongst businesses in the UK and the historic negative perceptions surrounding the products. The report suggests that an education and information programme by the banks could be used to help address these issues.

The report also specifically highlights the role of some companies that provide electronic platforms, such as MarketInvoice and Platform Black. These have both recently been launched allowing customers to find finance against their receivables online.

This seems like exactly the kind of profile raising that the UK invoice finance industry needs in order to achieve its full potential and contribute to bridging the funding gap for businesses in the UK.

To read the full government report follow this link: Boosting Finance Options For Business

“If you had to use an invoice finance facility would you choose factoring (with credit control) or invoice discounting?”

The result was that 54% of respondents said they would choose factoring (remember these are nearly all not existing invoice finance users) compared with only 46% said that they would choose invoice discounting. The results confirmed that the majority of businesses actually would prefer factoring, the opposite of opinion around parts of our industry. This suggests that invoice finance companies need to cater for users of both types of product but that they should not fall into the trap of assuming that everyone wants invoice discounting.

Fortunately, as a brokerage we are still managing to significantly outpace the industry in terms of our own growing client numbers – we saw a 10% increase in the volume of invoice finance clients taken on last year against the previous year.