First EU factoring and commercial finance summit
Industry joins forces in order to support the real economies in Europe
The factoring and commercial finance industry met yesterday in Brussels for the first time ever for a summit aiming at joining forces and developing common solutions to support the real economy.
The European Federation (EUF) and the two international global networks for factoring and commercial finance (IFG and FCI) gathered 150 participants from 33 countries around the world who discussed market evolution for factoring in Europe, developed country comparisons to identify best practices and considered challenges and opportunities for the industry in Europe. They chose Brussels for this first European Summit to strengthen their dialogue with European decision makers to support them in their commitment to develop tools for the real economy and SMEs in particular.
Daniela Bonzanini, chairman of FCI, said: “Indeed in recent years factoring has established itself as an important form of financing for corporations and has been recognized as the product to support SMEs in particular. In 2013 factoring represented 4% of global GDP and amounted to 2.2tn Euros. Europe itself represents around 60% of the global industry turnover and 9.6% of EU GDP.
FCI and IFG have been committed to build a global network to offer importers and exporters solutions to reduce the length of their trade cycles, protect their business and cut operating costs.
Margrith Lütschg-Emmenegger, chairman of IFG, said: “Success will strongly depend on harmonization with regard to legal and regulatory aspects as well as accounting treatment. It is important at the European level but also globally. 77% of the European turnover is in the hand of 5 countries (namely UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain). We need to further develop awareness as well.”
John Gielen, chairman of EUF, has known factoring for over fifty years. It started in the USA at the end of the XIXth century and migrated to Europe after the Second World War. It rapidly became much more significant compared to the rest of the world. John, said: “Modern factoring has always had to think globally and act locally. This has become even more important since the financial and banking crisis in 2008 and the current economic crises that we face.”
