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Business Money Ltd 2006
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The 4th East European Factoring Association
Conference - Vilnius, Lithuania
14 September 2004
It was a pleasure to be invited to address the fourth conference of
the East European Factoring Association in Lithuania and having
prepared my presentation on ‘Promotional Advertising in Factoring in
the Factoring Industry’, the flight from Bristol to Amsterdam thence
to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, took a far shorter time than I
thought possible.
Realistically it is just the other side of the Baltic, but being one
of the former Republics under the USSR, one gained the inaccurate
impression that it is much further away.
The opening reception in the beautiful Hotel Reval, which was where
we also stayed, saw a few of the usual suspects emerge – this is one
of the best hotels I have ever stayed in and at one third the rates
one would pay in London for similar levels of accommodation.
An old friend of Business Money, Mikhail Treyvish, who was to chair
the conference, was there, assisted by several loyal and hard
working members of his team and other factors from Russia, eastern,
central and western Europe.
The conference opened on Wednesday with an address from Mikhail and
he was followed by Gitanas Nauseda who is public adviser to the
president of the Republic of Lithuania, and adviser to the president
of Vilinaus Bankas AB. Gitanas gave us a detailed and compelling
account of the manner in which the Lithuanian economy, together with
its Baltic partners, has shaken off the yoke of a regime that once
seemed determined to compel it to eternal poverty.
Great strides are being made and whilst the exports have much to do
with the abundant raw materials, such as timber, available in the
Baltic States, and the customers are also near neighbours, it is
surely only a matter of time before inward investment from the
European Union, which Lithuania has recently joined, starts to give
the economy a broader thrust and allows it to accelerate even
faster.
The next presentation on ‘International Factoring and Domestic
Factoring in Lithuania’ was delivered by Vaida Eiciniene. Vaida, who
apart from being built like a supermodel like so many Lithuanian
women, proved to be a charming and fun loving host throughout the
whole conference and Alex Hilton-Baird tells me that she is also a
live wire on the dance floor. Vaida is products and structured finance
department head of the factoring unit at Vilniaus Bankas AB, and
hearing her talk of the challenges facing the market here, old hands
of the UK factoring industry of some 20-30 years ago will have found
a number of common themes.
There is, nevertheless, the resolute confidence in the future that
old hands will also recognise and the opening presentation on
factoring set a high standard.
The main language for the conference presentations was English but
before lunch there was a session for representatives of CIS
countries and those of us not possessing any knowledge of Russian
were allowed to adjourn.
This gave us an opportunity to retreat to a local bar halfway across
the bridge pictured to discuss, among other things, the whereabouts
of the luggage of two or three of our members that had gone missing.
Some of it turned up in Cairo!
The afternoon session was kicked off by Jeroen Kohnstamm who was
chairing. Jeroen firstly introduced Kalle Kiigske of Baltic Business
Associates who explored the highways and byways of factoring in the
Baltic States.
At 3.20pm Mikhail Treyvish took to the stand and gave us a
considered and deeply studied view of the factoring industry in
non-EU Europe. A consistent theme is that it is ripe with
opportunity, fraught with challenges proposed by cross-border
jurisdictional problems and, on occasions in some areas, is fighting
to create an entity of critical mass but sometimes finding itself
fighting uphill against problems of educating the customers as to the
possibilities.
Panos Papatheodorou of FG Factors then closed the session with more
detail on factoring in the Balkans.
On Thursday, we commenced at 10.00am with Jan Becher chairing the
session. Theo Hibler, of Intermarket Bank, addressed ‘Factoring
Start-ups the First Steps’. Jean Pierre Geartner, IPSO Direct
followed and he described the manner in which IPSO managed
cross-border factoring operations. This is a cheap and effective way
of undertaking such business, something which maybe deserves far
wider exposure as an alternative to the existing mechanisms.
Come the afternoon, Alex Hilton-Baird proceeded to give one of the
truly great presentations on ‘Sales and Marketing of Factoring
Services’ and left yours truly with a hard act to follow with my
presentation on ‘Promotion and Advertising in Factoring’.
Nevertheless by using a number of advertisements from our good
customers I was able to explain to the audience how different
companies marketed their images in different ways and we covered one
or two fundamentals of advertising which, given the way in which
many in the industry here worked a decade ago, could well find a
receptive ear there.
A good lunch followed by a city tour and in the evening a gala
dinner at a traditional Lithuanian tavern accompanied by music,
toasts, speeches and a splendid display of Lithuanian dancing. I
have to say that Smith & Williamson’s Tony Murphy displayed a
hitherto unforeseen capacity to escort one of the pretty young
ladies to the floor and turn in a dazzling and wholly correct display
of footwork, one which won him applause from a well oiled and very
appreciative audience.
It was then back to the hotel and in the morning we had the bus tour
to Trakai, the ancient capital of Lithuania where we visited a
castle comprising the ancient seat of power, followed by lunch at a
water mill restaurant from which I departed slightly early to catch
my plane back from Vilnius Airport.
Conferences abroad can create a wonderful atmosphere of shared
experiences, meeting new friends and identifying with the aims and
objectives of people pursuing ambitions which will be only too
familiar to veterans in our business. The industry in Russia and
eastern Europe is similar to that in Britain some time ago, but it
is making mixed progress depending upon the country of operation,
also the will of the executives there.
I had the opportunity to interview in some depth Nadezhda
Borodachova, Nadya to her friends, who is the factoring and bill
operations department manager, corporate business department of Bank
Centre Credit, in Kazakhstan.
She told me that her bank is a relatively recent convert to
factoring and in Kazakhstan they have to compete with three major
operators.
Aged 28, with a successful university education behind her, Nadya
often finds that competition from her own bank, offering banking
services, provides as much of a challenge as the opposition
sometimes and she also revealed to me that she works incredibly
hard, something else which will come as no surprise to the
successful and aspiring young managers in the UK.
She lives with her parents to whom she was born quite late in their
lives and has recently acquired her first car, a Volkswagen Passat.
I must thank Mikhail and the East European Factoring Association for
organising such a successful conference and for affording Alex and
myself the honour of addressing it.
Alex has been heavily involved with the development of the Bibby
business in Poland, he speaks fluent Polish and is rightly regarded
as a good friend of those seeking to prosecute business in the area.
Next year’s conference is in Kiev and while the English contingent
was well represented with delegates from Lloyds TSB Commercial
Finance, Bibby Group, Venture Finance, Eurofactor, HPD Software,
Hilton-Bairds and Business Money, plus the two leading lights from
Factors Chain International and the International Factors Group,
maybe some more will show up next year.
I am sure there are business opportunities in abundance here and I
believe the relationships cemented at this stage could bear
considerable fruit in the long-term.
Editor
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