According to estimates by Assifact il factoring returned to growth in 2021. In May alone, the turnover of Italian factoring grew by around 49% compared to the same month in 2020, leading to a growth in the cumulative business volume of the first five months (+ 9,82%). This is what emerged during the annual meeting of the association that brings together factoring companies, a business that in Italy moves a turnover equal to about 14% of the national GDP.
Factoring thus confirms its role of flexible support to the working capital needs of companies. If in the year marked by the pandemic, the collapse in turnover had generated a cumulative turnover of 228 billion euros as at 31 December (down by 10,83% on 2019), today the turnover of the sector "follows" the rebound in turnover in the second quarter of 2021.
A trend in line with what happened worldwide: l'Italy even during the pandemic it still maintained its positions with a share of the8,4% of world factoring and 12,4% of the European one.
In particular, the operations of supply chain finance they reached 10% of the turnover at 22,3 billion in 2020, therefore an increase of 20,78% compared to 2019, 21 of which deriving from reverse factoring.
“The reverse factoring convention agreements stipulated by medium-large companies with factoring companies – he declared Fausto Galmarini, President of Assifact – remain the most consolidated solution for optimizing, managing and supporting working capital upstream of one's supply chain".
The President of the Association then wanted to underline the significant growth rates of the supply chain finance confirming, innovative service in strong growth (+1,3 billion euros) thanks to which a company appoints the factoring company to manage trade payables to its suppliers, so that they can collect their receivables or have advances in a short time, while the company can obtain payment extensions. All through digital platforms or systems.
For post-Covid, factoring is proposed as an "ideal tool for managing working capital and for capturing and enhancing signs of recovery, also supporting companies in the process of innovation, digitization and ecological transition", concluded the President of Assifact.
And on the occasion of the annual meeting, the Italian factoring association took up the challenge of sustainability with the round table “Sustainable finance and corporate financial education: factoring at the service of collective well-being”. With the participation of the General Secretary of Assifact, Alessandro Carretta, Magda Bianco of Bankitalia, the economist Leonardo Becchetti, Mario Cristina partner of PwC and the President of the Forum for Sustainable Finance, Gian Franco Giannini Guazzugli.
Almost 33 companies turn to factoring, of which 60% are SMEs. 56,3% of loans in the portfolio at the end of 2020 are from private companies, 17,3% from the PA. Credit quality remains high with decorated exposures decreasing (-4,05%), a level lower than the banking sector (4,4%) which also in 2020 was favored by liquidity support measures due to the pandemic. The sufferings of the sector fall to the lows of the last few years with 1,79% of total exposures, explained Galmarini during the online round table.
The objective of the Association is to integrate into the strategies of factoring companies i ESG criteria, in general the principles of sustainability, both for the selection of business-clients and for risk assessment, in line with the financing path for sustainable growth outlined by the European Commission, the ECB and the EBA, the European banking authority .
