From the Close Invoice Finance blog
A little more fizz please
Established as a health resort in 1860, famous faces such as Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson and German Nobel Prize winner for Literature Thomas Mann and even the great Arthur Conan Doyle spent time in the mountains of Switzerland soaking up the rarified air of the Alpine Ski Resort.
Way up in the mountains, some 1560 metres above sea level, sits Davos – a resort which still bustles with skiers and snowboarders that now also plays host to the world’s leading business and political figures.
Every year more than 2500 VIPs meet for five days in January, in what some have criticised as a high altitude cocktail party. For others this coming together of the great and good is an opportunity to find ways to improve the global economy and society as a whole.
The fresh mountain air was, however, marred by the overhanging clouds of the Eurozone crisis, the Arab Spring and the standoff with Iran. While the champagne was still in evidence, the mood was reportedly sombre.
The theme of the Annual Meeting was The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models – with views exchanged on the future of capitalism, the need for job creation and how to reduce global inequality.
While we must of course hope that the aims of the group come to fruition, for small business owners it does feel a little bit like preaching to the choir.
Small businesses across the UK know that we need to create jobs, we know that we need to get the economy going again and of course are all feeling the effects of the ongoing crisis in the Eurozone – not least due to the fact that 40 per cent of our exports go to Europe.
Another knock on from the sovereign debt crisis is the relatively low levels of lending to businesses.
While bankers remained on the whole more muted at the summit, it was noted that the banking crisis in Europe has led to banks increasing capital requirements and thereby reducing their lending – again something we have all been feeling for a long time.
Little was said on how to address this and the continued unwillingness of banks to lend SMEs means will continue to struggle to find the capital they require to pursue their ambitions and set the economy on the road to recovery.
We work with a wide range of clients, who have been striving steadily to capitalise on opportunities for growth but have, until now, been held back by lack of credit.
Our customers are benefiting from asset-based lending in the form of invoice finance, which allows them to release up to 95 per cent of the value of an invoice immediately, meaning that they don’t have to wait up to 30 days, or longer for customers to pay.
According to recent statistics from the UK Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA), invoice finance is outperforming all other types of business lending. Between 2000 and 2010, the sector grew by a staggering 175 per cent, from £77 billion to £212 billion in total client sales.
While the atmosphere at Davos might have been muted this year – maybe if small businesses get the funding they need to realise their ambitions, next year’s event could have a little more champagne and fizz.
David Thomson, CEO Close Invoice Finance