- 11 Aug
PNB Paribas Moves Into Invoice Financing - Again?
I have just read an article in Finextra, dated just 2 hours ago, titled "BNP Paribas Moves Into Invoice Financing". It made me think for a moment, because I was sure that they were already active in the invoice finance arena - and sure enough they are on our list of invoice finance companies. The article goes on to talk about the launch of their new system, FINSY, a digital solution to allow customers to benefit from a cash advance against their invoices. All good use of emerging technology, but I wanted to point out that they have been involved in the invoice financing arena for a very long time!
BNP Paribas Commercial Finance History
According to the BNP Paribas Commercial Finance website, their history can be traced back to the creation of IFITALIA, in1963, Italy's first factoring company that apparently joined BNP Paribas in 2006. The timeline of their heritage goes on to trace their development up to the acquisition of Fortis Commercial Finance in 2011 and then in 2012 BNP Paribas Factoring becoming their overall brand for global business.
So great that their new FINSY system is leveraging new technology to leverage the increasing digitalisation of transactions, but it is a move forward rather than a move into invoice financing.
Invoice Finance Companies Using Technology
There are of course several other UK invoice finance companies on the list that have also made moves to leverage the increased digitalisation of transactions over the last few years. I can't think of any providers that don't have any kind of electronic interface that their clients can use, although the range of functionality varies between them.
File upload facilities are now widely used by the majority of factoring companies - allowing a file of invoices and credit note records to be uploaded to your financier. The ability to upload of your whole sales ledger was introduced over a decade ago. This type of functionality allows data to be extracted from your accounting software, automatically if required, saving you the huge burden of submitting paper documents to invoice financing companies.
If you would like to know more about the latest technology that is available, we would be happy to discuss it with you.