More Small Businesses Say No to Banks and looking for alternative banking solutions
Factris has published results for the first half of 2019 demonstrating the growth in alternative banking solutions. The report showed that from January to June of 2019, customer involvement with the company grew tremendously in comparison to 2018, revealing a significant shift in how small business financing is taking place. Alternative banking solutions
The details contained in the report show that more than ever, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across Europe are starting to reject traditional banking in favor of more responsive financing alternatives when they need temporary cash flow. For example, from January to June 2019, Factris reported a 50% increase in their number of clients compared to the same period in 2018. However, this increase is dwarfed by another statistic contained in the report: growth in revenue of 861%, with the corresponding increase in the size of the receivables portfolio, year on year. The success and growth reported by the fintech company strongly suggest a change is taking place in the European financial system.
As revealed in the report, prior to taking advantage of Factris’ services the average time SMEs had to wait before they received payment from their buyers was 36 days, which placed a heavy burden on their ability to maintain working capital to stay afloat. Among these companies who had difficulty receiving payments, 23% were dealing with a non-paying customer from a different country, which further complicated problems caused by delayed payments.
The report also indicated who struggled the most with late payments, noting that the professional service industry made up 30% of those turning to Factris’ financial solutions for financial support. After that, the transportation/freight industry made up 22%, followed by the food and beverage industry at 17% and the construction industry comprising 9% of their customers. The remaining 22% of their customers were in the retail, manufacturing, and medical industries, respectively.
These details paint a clear picture of why many SMEs have chosen alternative banking solutions and financing companies like Factris instead of banks. Access to capital is critical for any small business to stay afloat, so SMEs need responsive financial help when problems arise—something traditional banks are notoriously slow to provide. Factris has seen that as an opportunity.
“What Factris has been able to do is capitalize on the bottleneck in cash flow caused by traditional banking solutions. Our rapid, personalized financial services simply can’t be matched by banks,” notes Factris CFO Brice Laurent.
