201510 CM October

CREDIT MANAGEMENT 

CM 

THE CICM JOURNAL FOR CONSUMER AND 

COMMERCIAL CREDIT PROFESSIONALS 

OCTOBER 2015 www.cicm.com £10.00 

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FLC

CONTENTS 

OCTOBER 

2015 

www.cicm.com 

REGULARS 

4 Editor’s column 

6 News 

10 CICMQ News 

20 Freeths Legal Matters 

36 International Trade 

42 HR Matters 

53 Forthcoming Events 

54 Branch News 

58 New members 

59 Cr£ditWho? directory 

63 Crossword 

18 DEGREES OF DEBT 

Jem Bosatta, a current student, explores 

the issue of student debt and 

ponders the winners and losers. 

20 FREETHS LEGAL MATTERS 

In this month’s legal matters we explain 

the changes to the Insolvency Rules 

that are due to come into force this 

month. 

22 COUNTING CARDS 

Adam Bernstein looks into the effect that 

new regulations for card payments will 

have on service providers. 

18 

FEATURES 

11 INSOLVENCY NEWS 

David Kerr takes a look at insolvency .... 

fees. 

13 SOAPBOX CHALLENGE 

Charles Wilson is not happy about losing 

control of his personal data. 

14 VIEW FROM THE SEA 

Feature special 

David Andrews considers the 

gentrification of the London’s City, and 

asks what happened to the Old School. 

16 THE WINNERS TAKE IT ALL 

(PART TWO) 

With entries already coming in for the 

2016 CICM British Credit Awards, Alex 

Simmons asks the 2015 Award winners 

what winning has meant to them and 

how they think it has helped their 

business. 

25 NINE-PAGE ALTERNATIVE 

FINANCE FEATURE 

What does the future hold for the 

alternative finance industry? We talk to 

experts. 

34 PAYMENT TRENDS 

Jason Braidwood MCICM(Grad) analyses .. 

the latest monthly business-to-business .. 

payment performance statistics. 

38 A GOLDEN PYRRHIC VICTORY 


Peter Walker looks at a recent case 

decided in the Supreme Court, which 

considered the validity of an arbitration 

award worth over $3 million. 

40 THE DRAGON SLAYER 


Derek ‘the dragon slayer' Scott FCICM, 

takes us back to when he fought off bad 

payment terms in a manner similar to 

when George slayed the dragon. 

44 EDUCATION 

Is it time to qualify your team? 

14 

32 

xx 

CICM GOVERNANCE 

PRESIDENT 

Stephen Baister FCICM 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE 

Philip King FCICM CdipAF MBA 

EXECUTIVE BOARD 

Gerard Barron FCICM 

Laurie Beagle FCICM – Vice Chair 

Larry Coltman FCICM – Treasurer 

Victoria Herd FCICM 

Bryony Pettifor FCICM(Grad) - Chair 

David Thornley FCICM 

ADVISORY COUNCIL 

Sharon Adams MCICM(Grad) 

Gerard Barron FCICM 

Laurie Beagle FCICM – Vice Chair 

Glen Bullivant FCICM 

Sue Chapple FCICM 

Larry Coltman FCICM – Treasurer 

Jacky Cooper FCICM 

Eleimon Gonis MCICM 

Victoria Herd FCICM 

Neil Jinks FCICM 

Edward Judge MCICM 

Carole Morgan FCICM 

Salima Paul FCICM 

Bryony Pettifor FCICM(Grad) – Chair 

Charlie Robertson FCICM 

Chris Sanders FCICM 

Richard Seadon FCICM 

David Thornley FCICM 

Peter Whitmore FCICM 

Paul Woodward MCICM(Grad) 

Catherine Bradford MCICM (Acting) 

Peter Powell MCICM (Acting) 


www.cicm.com October 2015 3



THE CICM JOURNAL FOR CONSUMER AND 

COMMERCIAL CREDIT PROFESSIONALS 

the 

Editor’s 

column 

BROADCASTERS, 

BASEBALL BATS AND THE 

MOTHERS’ UNION 

AT the UK Credit and Collections Conference 

(UKCCC) at Wembley last month, guest 

celebrity host, John Humphreys, admitted 

that his own preconceived ideas and 

expectations of the world of debt collection 

had been somewhat wide of the mark. His 

actual comment I hesitate to report in 

full to save Mr Humphrey’s embarrassment 

(and possibly his career) but they 

involved baseball bats, ladies of the 

night, and the mothers’ union. Those who 

were there will know what I am talking about. 

Both the veteran broadcaster and fellow 

journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer seemed 

particularly bemused by the subject of 

the final panel debate: regulated and 

unregulated collections. And I’m not 

surprised. 

The FCA regulates only those financial 

services debts that used to fall under the 

auspices of the Consumer Credit Act; it does 

not, however, have any power or remit to 

regulate consumer debt generated outside 

of the financial services world. 

So why is this important? Because it 

means that collectors who work for various 

public sector bodies such as the HMRC or 

DVLA, or the telcos, water companies and 

other utilities are not bound by the same 

rules, regulations and principles as the rest. 

It means that consumers cannot in any 

way expect a consistent ‘treatment’, which 

means the possibility of more detriment, 

more vulnerability, and more negative press 

attention is very real indeed. 

OFWAT caused confusion by insisting 

that any agencies wanting to work 

water debt had to be FCA regulated, 

thus single-handedly but misleadingly 

elevating the FCA to be the ultimate arbiter 

for collections in its ‘patch’. Having now 

understood its mistake it has been 

obliged to clarify its position (see news 

page 7), but only after long and concerted 

campaigning by the CSA and specialist 

collector, Orbit. 

I do not blame OFWAT for being 

confused. What worries me is that in 

trying to simplify regulation, we have taken 

something that wasn’t especially broken and 

well and truly knackered it. The industry is 

confused; the consumer is confused; and 

even the great Mr Humphreys is confused. 

And that takes some doing. 

CM MAGAZINE | CONTACT AND PUBLISHING DETAILS: ISSN 0265-2099 

Publisher 

Chartered Institute of Credit Management 

The Water Mill 

Station Road 

South Luffenham 

OAKHAM 

LE15 8NB 

Telephone: 01780 722910 

Fax: 01780 721333 

Email: editorial@cicm.com 

Website: www.cicm.com 

CMM: www.creditmanagement.org.uk 

Managing Editor 

Sean Feast 

Deputy Editor 

Alex Simmons 

Art Editor 

Andrew Morris 

Telephone: 01780 722910 

Email: andrew.morris@cicm.com 

Editorial Team 

Imogen Hart, Tom Berger, Iona Yadallee 

Advertising 

Anthony Cave 

Telephone: 0203 603 7934 

Email: anthony.cave@cabbell.co.uk 

Printers 

Warners (Midlands) Plc 

2015 subscriptions 

UK: £85 per annum 

Overseas: £110 per annum 

Single copies: £10.00 

View our digital version online at www.cicm.com 

Log on to the Members’ area, and click on the tab labelled “Credit Management magazine” 

Audit Bureau of Circulations 

July 2013-June 2014: 

Average net circulation 7073 

Reproduction in whole or part is forbidden without specific permission. Opinions expressed in this magazine do not, unless 

stated, reflect those of the Chartered Institute of Credit Management. The Editor reserves the right to abbreviate letters if 

necessary. The Institute is registered as a charity. The mark ‘Credit Management’ is a registered trade mark of the Chartered 

Institute of Credit Management. 

4 October 2015 www.cicm.com 

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CICM NEWS 

CMNEWS 

A 

round-up 

of news stories 

from the world 

of consumer and 

commercial 

credit. 

By SEAN FEAST 

SERVICES SECTOR DRIVES 

BUSINESS CONFIDENCE 

 

THE Services sector – a sector that 

represents some 80 percent of the 

UK economy – is driving business 

confidence and the outlook for 

growth, according to a new quarterly 

barometer. 

The results from the latest Chartered 

Institute of Credit Management (CICM) 

Credit Managers’ Index (CMI) for Q2 2015 

show a continued renewal in business 

confidence with an all-time index high (60.7). 

The index, sponsored by Tinubu Square, 

gauges nationwide levels of credit being 

sought and granted by credit managers 

across both the manufacturing and services 

sectors. It therefore acts as a primary 

indicator of actual levels of business being 

conducted. 

Despite the previously robust index 

scores in manufacturing, the sector took 

a significant hit and now stands at 59.2, 

a marked decrease of 2.43. The services 

sector, however, continued its impressive 

rise, closing up by 1.77 to an all time record 

high of 61.3, contributing towards the 

headline index’s 0.49-point increase to 60.7, 

1.5 points above the index at the same time 

last year (59.2). 

New credit applications have increased 

from the previous quarter, up by 1.3 to 

67.7 building on the improvements in Q1 

2015 of 4.2. Despite this, credit sales have 

seen a 0.8 decrease on Q1 2015 to 70.2, 

representing a downward trend of three 

consecutive quarters. 

The survey also looked at how 

companies manage their own trade credit 

risk, finding that over a third (36 percent) 

believe they are exposed to greater risks 

than they should be. For those already 

using dedicated software for Trade Credit 

Risk Management (TCRM), 76 percent 

stated reporting and analytics were 

the most important features to them, 

highlighting the role software can play 

in giving credit managers complete and 

actionable insight on their risk exposure. 

Philip King, Chief Executive of 

the CICM, says that the index reveals 

some interesting trends regionally, with 

every region other than the North East 

expanding. “For the second consecutive 

quarter all 18 sectors reported expansion. 

Q2 GDP was 2.6 percent higher compared 

with the same quarter a year ago and 5.2 

percent higher than the pre-economic 

downturn peak of Q1 2008, signs that the 

economy is continuing its slow but steady 

recovery.” 

Sébastien Clouet, Marketing Director 

for Tinubu Square adds that the continued 

success of the UK economy and 

companies eyeing expansion is great to 

see: “But the signs that a third do not have 

full visibility of the credit risks they are 

exposed to is a concern. As sectors take 

steps to expand, it is critical that they look 

closely at the processes and software they 

use to monitor risks across the business, 

and avoid scaling up those risks.” 

All 18 industry sectors reported good 

news in the first quarter of 2015, with 

Industrial Goods and Services (58.6), 

and Construction and Materials (63.5) 

attracting the most attention, whilst 

notable performers were Chemicals (58.5) 

and Technology (66.3). The good news 

was also spread evenly across the regions, 

especially in the Midlands. 

The latest CMI prompted some 400 

responses from credit managers in 

companies of various sizes broadly split 

by region, although slightly weighted to 

business in London and the Southeast. 

The continued success of the UK economy and companies eyeing 

expansion is great to see: “But the signs that a third do not have full visibility 

of the credit risks they are exposed to is a concern ... 

– SÉBASTIEN CLOUET 

Marketing Director, Tinubu Square 



OFWAT AMENDS GUIDANCE ON COLLECTIONS 

OFWAT, the water industry regulator, is to 

amend its current guidelines and not oblige 

water companies to only use agencies that 

are FCA regulated. 

A spokesman for OFWAT confirmed: 

“We have concluded that it would not be in 

the interest of customers to prevent debt 

collection agents who specialise in water 

debt from providing a service to the sector. 

In addition, we do not believe that there is 

a benefit in including this requirement in 

our guidance, as the FCA does not have 

any jurisdiction to consider malpractice 

associated with water debt collection.” 

As such, the spokesman added, OFWAT 

is intending to update its guidelines: “We 

are confident that our update will ensure 

that those companies that specialise in 

unregulated debt can continue to serve 

the water sector. While we recognise that 

the FCA does not have a role in regulating 

water debt, we do consider its handbook 

to be an example of best practice. As 

such, our updated guidance will encourage 

companies to contractually oblige their 

recovery agents to follow FCA guidelines 

when acting on their behalf.” 

The move follows calls for clarification 

from the Credit Services Association (CSA) 

and its members, including the Orbit 

Collections Group, a specialist collector. 

Tom Somerville, Operations Director 

of Orbit, says that agencies working in the 

water industry do more than simply 

collect debt: “The water companies do not 

have the ultimate sanction of turning off 

the supply to those who cannot or will 

not pay, as do the banks with credit,” he 

says. 

“Our role is therefore to work with 

consumers to resolve their debt issues, 

to explore what help is available through 

government or specific company 

schemes and find more affordable tariffs 

to reduce their ongoing charges. Within 

the existing guidance from OFWAT, this 

specialist help would have been lost, 

to the consumers’ detriment. Now, 

however, OFWAT is reviewing its guidance 

to ensure such specialisms are retained.” 

Leigh Berkley, CSA President also 

welcomed what he described as ‘the 

common sense approach’ by OFWAT: “The 

ultimate goal must remain that we treat 

every customer the same, whether dealing 

with a water, telco or banking debt, and 

we welcome OFWAT’s contribution in this 

regard.” csa-uk.com 

STOP 

PRESS 

THE Chartered Institute of Credit 

Management (CICM) is to embark on a 

major third party research programme over 

the coming weeks to ensure the Institute 

continues to deliver tangible support and 

benefits to members at all stages of their 

professional development. 

“The CICM is using its new Chartered 

status as the springboard to ensure it 

continues to remain relevant and important 

in the lives of members, measuring current 

levels of engagement and exploring the 

future needs of members,” says Philip 

King, CICM Chief Executive. 

The research project, which will include 

qualitative and quantitative elements, 

is in the final stages of planning. More 

details will follow in the next issue of Credit 

Management. 

UK SMES EXPRESS CONCERNS OVER CURRENCY RISK 

CURRENCY risk tops a list of concerns 

for the UK’s small and medium-sized 

enterprises (SMEs) when it comes to 

international commerce according to new 

research from AFEX. 

AFEX’s second annual Currency Risk 

Outlook Survey questioned more than 450 

financial decision makers at SMEs with 

international operations about their attitudes 

towards global trade, foreign exchange risk 

and their methods of managing it. 

Some 43 percent of UK businesses 

see currency risk as the most significant 

challenge they face, ahead of finding the 

right suppliers and customers (31 percent) 

and managing payments (13 percent). The 

proportion of businesses citing currency risk 

as their main challenge has increased from 

32 percent in 2014. 

Sterling has experienced a significant 

level of volatility over the last 12 months, 

reaching both seven-year highs against 

the Euro and five year lows against the US 

Dollar in the period. Some UK companies 

have benefited from this volatility, with six 

percent attributing an increase in the size of 

their business to it and four percent saying 

it has accelerated their growth plans. 

Others have been less fortunate, 

however, with eight percent of companies 

attributing the closure of an office, a 

reduction in the size of their business, 

staffing levels or the cancellation of growth 

plans to the effects of currency volatility. 

Currently, two-thirds (66 percent) of the 

UK SMEs surveyed do not currently employ 

hedging tools, such as Forward Contracts 

or Options, to mitigate their currency 

risk. However, currency volatility and the 

influence of a number of global events 

over the past 12 months have led many 

companies to revisit their currency risk 

mitigation strategies. 

With the vast majority (91 percent) 

expecting international markets to remain 

at least as volatile in 2015 as they were 

in 2014, it is unsurprising that a greater 

number are actively looking to actively 

manage their currency risk. Around half (52 

percent) of companies plan to use Forward 

Contracts this year. These contracts allow 

firms to lock in a price for a currency 

exchange up to 12 months in advance, 

providing certainty and protecting a 

business’s bottom line. 

Around a quarter (26 percent) of firms 

intend to pass on their currency risk to 

their suppliers or customers by demanding 

that payments are made in sterling and 

eight percent plan to use natural hedging 

to manage their FX risk. Natural hedging 

involves matching the liabilities against the 

assets in foreign markets to limit exposure 

to international markets and avoid 

converting currencies as far as possible. 

Despite uncertainty about the macroeconomic 

picture, UK companies are 

more bullish about their prospects when 

it comes to international trade this year 

than they were in 2014. Nearly half of 

respondents (46 percent) are expecting an 

increase in their international trade levels in 

2015 – up from just 26 percent in 2014. 

Of those, the majority (61 percent) are 

looking to Western Europe to drive this 

growth. The United States (36 percent), 

China (14 percent) and Eastern Europe (13 

percent) are also identified as key target 

markets. afex.com 



NEWS IN BRIEF 

SOCIALMEDIA 

STAY CONNECTED WITH THE CICM, WITH 

THESE EASY STEPS ... 

How to follow 

CICM on Twitter: 

• Visit: https://twitter.com/signup. 

• Enter the details requested e.g. name, a password. 

• Click Sign up and follow the easy instructions. 

• Select a username (you can type your own or choose one Twitter will suggest). 

• Don’t forget to follow the CICM twitter account https://twitter.com/CICM_HQ. 

• If you have any problems, contact CICM Head of Social Media, Tracy Carter. 

How to follow 

CICM on Linkedin: 

• Visit: https://www.linkedin.com/reg/join. 

• Enter details requested e.g. name, email address, a password. 

Note: You must use your true name. Company names and pseudonyms are 

not allowed. 

• Click Join Linkedin. 

• Complete any additional steps as prompted. 

• Join the Chartered Institute of Credit Management (CICM) company page 

and the active discussions on the CICM Credit Community Group. 

CE Blog 

TAKE A LOOK 

THE CICM ACTIVELY USES SOCIAL MEDIA TO PROVIDE NEWS, COMMENTS, 

PROMOTE EVENTS AND ENCOURAGE DISCUSSIONS AMONG BUSINESS 

AND CREDIT PROFESSIONALS INCLUDING OUR LEARNERS. 

CICM_HQ 

www.cicm.com/ceoblog/ 

Chartered Institute 

of Credit Management 

FORMER ROXBURGHE 

DIRECTOR CLEARED OF 

WRONGDOING 

Gary Osner, former Managing Director 

of Roxburghe, has been cleared of all 

accusations of wrongdoing or malpractice 

including any suggestion of unsuitability 

to manage a firm that held or holds a 

CCL. 

The news follows an adjudication 

made against Roxburghe (UK) Limited by 

the OFT and subsequently taken over by 

the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) that 

was quashed by the First Tier Tribunal 

following an appeal. The decision comes 

too late to save the jobs lost at Roxburghe 

when the firm was put into administration 

last year. Gary is now Managing Director 

of ZZPS Limited. 

Gary successfully argued that the 

initial revocation of Roxburghe’s CCL was 

simply because of its association with its 

parent company. 

fca.org.uk 

TRADE BOSS 

DR Catherine Raines will become Chief 

Executive of UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), 

following current Chief Executive Dominic 

Jermey’s appointment to a new priority 

position as Foreign and Commonwealth 

Office (FCO) International Counter-Extremism 

Coordinator. She takes up the post of UKTI 

Chief Executive after more than two years 

leading UKTI in China, having overseen an 

increase in UK business successes attributable 

to UKTI support from around £300 million a 

year to more than £3.7 billion. Prior to joining 

the civil service, she also ran her own business 

as well as holding the role of Deputy Chief 

Executive at Staffordshire County Council. 

ukti.gov.uk 

NEW POSTING 

DAVID Postings has been appointed 

as Global Chief Executive Officer for 

Bibby Financial Services (BFS), part 

of the 208-year-old Bibby Line Group. 

David who joined BFS as UK CEO in 

April 2012 – took-over as interim-global 

chief executive following the departure of 

Simon Featherstone in August. With 37 

years’ experience in financial services, 

David has held senior roles at Lloyds TSB, 

Barclays and TTT Moneycorp. He will 

start his new role with immediate effect, 

heading up a global team of 1,300. 

bibbyfinancialservices.com 



CICM NEWS 

BOOM IN BUSINESSES 

BORROWING AGAINST ASSETS 

 

BUSINESSES borrowing against their own 

hard assets, including inventory, plant 

and machinery and real estate, is growing 

rapidly, says the Asset Based Finance 

Association (ABFA). 

The ABFA says that an all-time high of 

£4.2 billion of alternative business finance is 

now secured against such assets, up nine 

percent on £3.8 billion a year ago. 

The ABFA explains that securing 

alternative funding against physical assets, 

often combined with funding against the 

debts owed to them by their customers, is 

becoming a primary choice for finance for 

many businesses. It is increasingly being 

used as an alternative to more ‘traditional’ 

forms of borrowing such as term loans and 

overdrafts. 

It adds that it has seen substantial 

growth in demand for this type of funding, 

known as ‘asset based lending’, from 

businesses across the economy, including 

larger businesses. 

The ABFA says that it has also seen 

businesses begin to borrow against more 

unusual and intangible assets, including 

intellectual property and sometimes forward 

income streams, as they explore other 

options to unlock finance for growth. 

The overall amount of funding provided 

to businesses through asset-based finance, 

including invoice finance as well as asset 

based lending rose by £370 million in the 

past year to stand at £19.3 billion at the end 

of June. 

This is backed up by a report from the 

University of Edinburgh Business School’s 

biennial Credit Risk and Credit Scoring 

Conference that suggests alternative 

lending is set to stay and significantly shake 

up the banking market. 

In a survey of 200 global conference 

delegates, from 40 countries, three 

quarters (75 percent) of experts questioned 

felt alternative lenders posed a real threat 

to banks and traditional lenders, with 19 

percent believing them to be a ‘big 

threat’. 

However, leading credit analysts 

appeared to welcome the challengers. 

More than half (55 percent) felt they 

will make the market for finance more 

competitive, while 53 percent believed 

alternative lending models are likely to 

increase access to finance in the next 5 

years. (See out special report starting on 

page 25). abfa.org.uk 

CSA SUPPORTS MEMBERS WITH NEW MODEL CONTRACT 

A new ‘model contract’ that helps debt 

collection agencies (DCAs) to negotiate 

terms to provide greater clarity and ensure 

the appropriate treatment of customers 

remains a core principal of the relationship, 

has been launched by the Credit Services 

Association (CSA). 

Launched specifically for those members 

operating in the contingency space, the new 

contract proposes compensation, recall and 

termination clauses to provide balance and 

clarity to both parties, as well as a suggested 

schedule and Service Level Agreements 

(SLAs) that can be adapted according to 

need. 

Nick Cherry, CSA Portfolio Director for 

DCAs, says that the contract will help CSA 

members of all sizes to agree fair terms 

in securing new business: “It is designed 

as a template that members can review 

and adapt to their own needs, and then 

use as a framework for negotiation and 

agreement with clients to ensure we have a 

balanced contract protecting the interests 

of all parties, and ensuring the appropriate 

treatment of customers remains a core 

principal of the relationship.” 

Sara de Tute, CSA Portfolio Director for 

Compliance, says that the new contract 

mirrors current thinking around best practice: 

“As well as consulting with members, we 

have also sought legal counsel to create 

a document with appropriate clauses and 

language to meet current FCA and other 

regulatory requirements,” she adds. 

Although not mandatory, the CSA 

expects the new contract to act as an 

essential benchmark to which its members 

can refer: “The contract will give members 

even greater confidence of securing 

business against terms that are fair and 

transparent in the context of an increasingly 

complex and sophisticated collections 

landscape,” Nick concludes. 

In addition to the contract, the CSA 

has also created a new glossary of terms 

to bring commonality in approach and 

understanding. Both the glossary and the 

new contract can be accessed via the 

members’ section of the CSA website. 

csa-uk.com 



NEWS IN BRIEF 

CREDITSAFE EXTENDS 

SCREENING SERVICE 

Creditsafe has extended its online 

product portfolio to include screening 

of politically exposed persons (PEPs) 

and companies affected by financial 

sanctions as part of day-to-day due 

diligence processes. 

The Joint Money Laundering Steering 

Group (JMLSG) has established new 

guidelines for managing Anti-Money 

Laundering (AML) and ‘Know Your 

Customer’ (KYC) processes. The 

guidelines state that all FCA registered 

companies must be fully aware of whom 

they are dealing with and that it is now 

compulsory to run detailed checks on 

customers. Creditsafe’s new process 

will help FCA registered businesses stay 

compliant with the JMLSG’s rules and 

regulations. 

creditsafeuk.com 

EXPANDING PAYMENTS 

Yorkshire Building Society has joined as 

a new member of Payments UK, with 

Earthport to follow shortly, and Volante 

Technologies also joining as an associate 

member. As a result, Payments UK will 

have 38 full members and 23 associate 

members. American Express, BNY 

Mellon, Metro, PayPal, Tesco Bank and 

Virgin Money have already joined the 

Payments UK board. 

earthport.com 

QUALITY ACCREDITATION BY THE 

CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF CREDIT MANAGEMENT 

HAVING gone through a public floatation 

and with its credit team experiencing rapid 

change, Royal Mail Group has joined the 

CICMQ ranks with first-time accreditation 

being described as ‘one of the real success 

stories of CICMQ’ by Chris Sanders, CICM’s 

Head of Accreditation-CICMQ. 

Royal Mail’s 140 plus members 

completed CICM training programmes 

throughout 2014 and Tina Saint, Group 

Billing and Collections Manager, says 

QUICK LEARNERS 

SMALL BUT MIGHTY 

achieving the accreditation was the obvious 

next step: 

“Whilst benchmarking amongst the best 

we are not prepared to stand still, and as a 

team we want to aim to become world-class.” 

As part of the process, the team 

underwent a month-long event to focus on 

raising collections for July: “We received 

nearly £800 million in cash over a six-week 

period, a 23 percent increase on the previous 

year,” Tina concludes. 

THE two-strong credit team at SEGRO, 

publically listed owner, asset manager and 

developer of modern warehousing, light 

industrial and data centre properties, is one 

of the smallest to have achieved three-time 

CICMQ accreditation. 

And don’t let size fool you; with over 

60-year’s combined experience, the team 

collects 99 percent of rents within 10 

working days of becoming due, no small feat 

considering the company controls £6 billion of 

assets and serves over 1,200 clients. 

Naomi Lynam, Finance Director Greater 

London, says the credit team is always at 

the top of its game: “We have legal quarterly 

due dates and intense periods of credit 

management and collections, which the team 

deal with and control expertly.” 

CICM IN BRIEF 

This month’s CICM Brief includes… 

details announcing the CICM British 

Credit Awards 2016 entries are now 

open, advice on how best to achieve 

CICMQ accreditation, special offers 

such as summer-ending ‘buy one get 

the second half-price’ on one-day 

training courses. 

THE UK credit team for global technology 

distributor, Avnet, Inc has been described 

as a ‘sales engine’ in its CICMQ assessor’s 

report, after achieving the qualification for 

the second time. 

Its long-term target of becoming a 

Centre of Excellence for the CICM is a step 

closer: 

“It’s confirmation that we are achieving 

the company’s and the industry’s goals,” 

‘SALES ENGINE’ 

says Darren Maynard, Head of Credit, Avnet 

Technology Solutions, EMEA, who also 

credits the introduction of a roadmap, a 

recommendation from its initial assessment 

in 2013, for giving a clear pathway towards 

future targets: 

“Regularly revisiting our processes 

and ensuring we look consistently to the 

future improves the team’s knowledge and 

experience,” he concludes. 



CREDIT 

INSOLVENCY NEWS 

FEES – THE OCTOBER 

REVOLUTION 

FROM 1 October this year, Insolvency 

Practitioners (IPs) and creditors 

will be dealing with the new rules 

regarding their fees. Ahead of 

the 2016 consolidated revision of the 

Insolvency Rules, these provisions have 

been introduced to give effect to one of the 

long-debated changes resulting from the 

Kempson report and before that the Office 

of Fair Trading’s review into the effectiveness 

of the market in controlling the costs of 

insolvencies. Those reports pointed to a lack 

of effective creditor input into fee approval 

processes in respect of unsecured debt. 

The primary legislation was passed in 

March this year, and the amendments allow 

those measures to be implemented. The 

central change is for a fee estimate at the 

outset of a case where the IP wishes to be 

remunerated by reference to time costs. 

In conception, that is a straightforward 

requirement which has the advantages of: 

1) giving creditors better information; 2) 

improving control mechanisms by means of 

a fee cap; and 3) allowing IPs to continue 

to charge on a time cost basis where 

appropriate. 

Since 2010, insolvency costs have been 

chargeable by a fixed fee, percentage of 

realisations, or time. In the latter case, time 

properly given by the IP and/or staff in 

performing necessary functions, e.g. those 

that are required by statute and in creditors’ 

interests. Arguably, as the 2010 rules 

permitted for the first time a combination of 

those bases (something too little explored by 

IPs, according to Professor Kempson), a full 

evaluation of the take-up, or lack of it, under 

those relatively recent changes might have 

been worthwhile prior to implementing the 

2015 rule amendments. But we are where 

we are, and fee estimates are here. 

The 2015 rules on fee estimates apply 

to insolvent liquidations, administrations 

and bankruptcies commenced on or 

after 1 October, not to cases already 

underway before that date. They don’t 

apply to voluntary arrangements, personal 

or corporate. So, in new cases the IP will 

be required to give creditors an estimate 

of the fee to be charged where time 

costs are the IP’s preferred method of 

remuneration. The IP will also have to 

provide information about expenses to be 

incurred. This will enable creditors to know 

at the outset how much it is going to cost 

to complete the case, and consequently 

what return creditors might expect. Where 

the IP wishes to draw a fee higher than the 

estimated figure, creditors will be asked to 

approve the excess. 

It is the office holder, i.e. liquidator, 

administrator or trustee, who is required 

to provide the estimate. The legislation 

drafting is unfortunately amiss here, as it 

does not cater well for the situation in a 

creditors’ voluntary liquidation (CVL) – still 

the most common type of insolvency. In 

a CVL the liquidator typically takes office 

with effect from the date of the creditors’ 

meeting, but the estimate would logically 

be provided when the notices are sent out, 

at which point technically the IP is not ‘in 

office’. The Insolvency Service (IS) will set 

out some guidance on this, but the position 

is less than ideal. The estimate could be 

provided by the intended liquidator and 

endorsed by the IP once appointed, or the 

IP could seek a resolution after appointment 

– though not at the first meeting of 

creditors, if creditors haven’t been given 

notice of the fee basis and estimate 

beforehand. 

Going forward into next year after the 

2016 rules consolidation, and as part of the 

de-regulation agenda, creditors’ meetings 

will be replaced in most instances by other 

decision-making processes. Some might 

see this as running counter to efforts to 

increase creditor engagement, but it will 

provide modern methods of engagement 

and give the IP an opportunity to seek 

creditor approval for fees post-appointment 

without the need to convene a meeting. 

The IS sees the new arrangements as 

a means to enhance accountability and 

competition. Some IPs will be concerned 

about ‘low-balling’ where a rival might 

offer to do the job for a lower fee, but end 

up going back to creditors with a revised 

estimate and a request for a higher fee. 

Creditors will need to be on the look-out 

for those requests and scrutinise them 

carefully. This is perhaps where creditors 

can best direct their intervention, and 

regulators too will be watchful around this 

area. 

But maybe the most important aspect 

in all this for creditors is the ability to use 

the information provided to focus time and 

effort on cases where they can see from the 

outset that there is a realistic prospect of a 

return. 

David Kerr MCICM is the 

Chief Executive of the Insolvency 

Practitioners Association (IPA). 


The IS sees the new arrangements as a means to enhance accountability 

and competition. Some IPs will be concerned about ‘low-balling’ where a rival 

might offer to do the job for a lower fee, but end up going back to creditors 

with a revised estimate and a request for a higher fee. 

– DAVID KERR 



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SOAPBOX CHALLENGE 

SOAPBOX 

VIRTUAL 

(UN)HAPPINESS 

Charles Wilson is not happy about losing control of his personal data 

challenge 

I 

love so much of what modern 

technology brings. Instant updates on 

my children and grandchildren, whenever 

I choose. At no cost at all. And an end 

to the telephone ping-pong I used to play 

a decade ago. At no cost either. Computer 

back-ups are ‘virtually’ free, and you don’t 

even have to remember to do them (every 

Cloud has its silver lining). And my biggest 

frustration of the 1990s has long since been 

resolved – trying to get clients to view their 

files through Lovetts’ paperless office. At no 

cost. Nirvana! 

But, when I ditched my iPhone recently 

(the late Steve Jobs would be my subject 

for another Soapbox challenge, Mr Editor) 

for a mobile phone that is controllable 

from 80 percent of the world’s PCs, I 

needed to set up a few facilities on the 

phone. Within minutes, I’d received an 

email from the provider (always spooky), 

enclosing information about ‘Personal data 

we collect’. All’s well I thought, we have 

the Data Protection Act which will keep 

my privacy for me…won’t it? Even on US 

servers? Not likely! 

Am I happy for my ‘name, email 

address, postal address, phone numbers 

to be stored’ elsewhere? Of course. And 

demographic data about me? I’d expect 

that, yes. 

How about the sports teams I follow in 

a sports app, or the stocks that I trade in 

a finance app, or ‘other interests that may 

be inferred or derived from other data we 

collect’? Wait a bit, you’re not snooping on 

me, are you? 

And my passwords, password hints 

and similar security information? Well, a 

necessary evil, and it’ll only be for the phone 

provider, won’t it? I think not. As we use the 

high-speed of 4G, and if we do more and 

more transactions with our faster and larger 

phones, they’ll be holding many passwords 

for the multiple sites I may use. 

It goes without saying that if I purchase 

things on the phone (I don’t for this reason!) 

they’ll ‘collect data necessary…such as.. 

credit card numbers and security codes’. 

Hmmm. Of course they also have data 

about all my contacts (sorry, if you know me 

then Big Brother knows you too, and much 

about you). And they know where I am, and 

when. With GPS precision. 

If we think about it, it’s obvious. But 

I’m squirming a bit more now. ‘We collect 

content of your files and communications… 

the content of your documents, the 

subject line AND body of an email, the 

text or content of an instant message, 

audio recordings and transcript of a voice 

message I may dictate, or may receive on 

my voicemail….’ 

But, dear reader, please be assured 

that we all ‘have choices about the data 

we (they) collect but if you choose not to 

provide data…you may not be able to use 

some services’. So, I’ve decided to disable 

voice activation; I really don’t want my 

conversations at home to be recorded. You 

see, our phones never ever actually turn off. 

I don’t mind some, or most, of this 

information being disclosed to defined 

organisations as I decide. What worries me 

is that one single provider knows so much 

about me simply because my mobile phone 

is always with me, always watching, always 

listening – there’s a danger it knows more 

about me than my wife does, and I’m not 

too happy about that. Nor is she! 

iCharles Wilson FCICM is Chairman at 

Lovetts, solicitors. That much he is happy 

to make public. 

Do you have an issue worthy of the soapbox challenge? If you do, the editor would love to hear from you. 

Send your email to editorial@cicm.com or andrew.morris@cicm.com 



OPINION 

VIEW FROM THE 

SEA FRONT 

David Andrews on the gentrification of London’s City, 

and what happened to the Old School. 



TRAINERS? THE ONLY KIND OF 

TRAINERS I KNEW OF BACK THEN 

WERE THE TRAINERS YOU PUT ON YOUR 

FEET BEFORE DOING THE ROAD WORK 

FEATURE 

SPECIAL 

YOU don’t go for a workout at a gym 

these days. Not if you are in the City 

of London, at least. 

No, head for 1Rebel in the 

Square Mile – it’s a ‘destination’, rather than 

a gym, they say – and you’ll be hammering 

out Rebel Reshapes or Rebel Rides with 

Jean, or maybe Vivi, or one of the many 

other gorgeous ‘personal trainers’ on hand 

to separate slickers from their hard-earned. 

1Rebel, gleaming, flash and sleek, rather 

than shabby and sweaty – which is how I 

prefer my gyms – comes with a glittering 

price tag. 

At £20 a pop for half an hour’s pumping 

on a spin bike, a bloke with a French accent 

shouting at you, 1Rebel is at the front line 

of the so called ‘feeder’ businesses which 

infest the City. 

The financial community, the money 

men and women, are prime targets for the 

hangers on, the flotsam and jetsam which 

attach themselves, barnacle-like, to the 

underbelly of the financial district. And 

the wholesale narcissism sweeping through 

the reflective edifices in 2015 provides 

rich pickings. 

Investment bankers, who back in the 

day would be hitting the wine bars bang on 

the nose of 12.30 are now more likely to be 

reflectively downing a kale smoothie and 

wondering if they can crack their 40 minute 

10k time on the run home from the office. 

And whether they can blast out a 

quick Rebel Reshape with Jean and the 

crew before the markets open the 

following morning. 

The City, currently enjoying an 

unprecedented period of growth, generates 

significant wealth for the UK. 

According to Brookings Institution, 

London boasts the fifth largest city 

economy in the world, after Tokyo, New 

York City, Los Angeles and Seoul with an 

estimated GVA of £309.3 billion in 2012 

(latest data available), and a per capita 

GVA of £37,232. By way of comparison, 

London's economy is roughly the same size 

as that of Sweden or Iran. 

With the vast majority of that wealth 

being delivered by the financial services 

sector, and most emanating from a threemile 

radius of the London Stock Exchange, 

we can expect to see plenty more of the 

1Rebel-type set-ups springing up. 

Easy pickings are on the doorstep. 

It was a different kind of economics 

for the gunslingers who hung out in the 

sweat-stained ‘gym’ perched more or less 

precisely in the centre of north London’s 

Finsbury Park in the mid-80s. 

Well ahead of the so-called Big Bang 

changes ushered into the City in 1986, 

I was scratching a living as a freelance 

writer, filing copy to any organisation that 

would have me. It was a hand to mouth yet 

exciting time, when I never knew where the 

next buck was coming from. 

The dominant economic narratives of the 

day for me were the exchanges that took 

place in that tiny, grimy work out space in 

London’s then very down at heel N4. 

Like most areas in the capital outside 

of the traditionally posh addresses – 

the Mayfairs and Knightsbridges and 

Kensingtons – which have always been 

affluent, one way or another – Finsbury Park 

was a dump. 

A seething cesspit which made 

downtown Detroit look glamorous, as the 

annoyingly good-looking American actor 

who frequented the gym and had a small 

part in the expensive TV series Tender is the 

Night (1985) memorably observed. 

The actor would invariably be among the 

dozen or so mostly black faces peering out 

from the gloomy interior. The rank stench of 

ancient sweat ingrained deeply in the walls 

and embedded into the pores of the grips 

on the free weights and primitive multi gym 

set up. 

My routine in those days would be to 

pester news desks for commissions, file 

articles and features I had on the go, before 

hitting the gym for a lengthy work out. 

We were all mostly on nodding terms, 

and would from time to time help one 

another to bench press the heavier weights. 

None of the regulars worked nine to five. 

Some of the guys had literacy issues. I 

remember composing letters to landlords, 

helping them work out bills they did not 

understand. That kind of thing. 

We were a community of sorts. We got 

along well. 

Along with listening to the handsome 

American actor grumbling about how dirty 

and tired London – and Londoners, 

I presume – was, I would nod in silent 

assent when Bernie K (we never knew what 

the K stood for), but everyone referred to 

him as Bernie K, talked about how hard it 

was to make a living in a London, which 

was on the verge of great change. 

The age of the Yuppie was imminent. 

And there was no place for Bernie and his 

crew in their narrow focus universe. 

“Man,” Bernie K would quietly observe 

as we gently jogged around the warm 

up track ahead of hitting the weights 

“getting harder and harder to make a living 

in this town. Think maybe I’ll be one of 

them trainers…” 

Trainers? The only kind of trainers I knew 

of back then were the trainers you put on 

your feet before doing the road work. 

“Man, you know…one of them personal 

trainers…those white dudes over there,” 

Bernie K nodded his glistening shaved head 

in the direction of the City. 

“Dudes are paying dudes to train with 

them,” said Bernie K, flashing a huge grin 

at me while simultaneously twirling a finger 

around a temple, the universal language for 

nutcases. 

Bernie K, who looked like a scaled down 

Muhammed Ali, rippling, precision defined 

abs, sharp as a pin, could not get his head 

around why anyone would hand over hard 

cash for a training session. 

“They got more money than the 

good sense they came into this world with,” 

he said. 

In 1985, when the notion of a personal 

trainer did not really exist outside of the 

smarter LA gyms, Bernie K had a point. 

The ramshackle crew who frequented 

the Finsbury Park recreation ground in that 

summer of 1985 paid 30p a pop for use of 

the track and ‘gym’. 

If there was a shower room, I never 

noticed it. There were no ‘celebrity DJ 

playlists’ such as 1Rebel advertises. 

Our accompanying sound track was 

invariably supplied by Jones, a massive 

black guy and integral member of Bernie 

K’s crew. Jones particularly liked to work 

the heavy bag that hung ponderously in one 

corner of the cramped space. 

He showed me how to put compelling 

combinations together on that bag. How to 

develop rhythm and technique over timed 

three minute, hard-hitting sessions. How to 

dance around the bag as it swung towards 

you. “Hit it man. Think of it as a guy you 

don’t like,” Jones would advise. 

Jones, 6 5’, buzz cut, heavily pock 

marked features and always chuckling with 

one of those infectious laughs, had the 

biggest arms and chest I had ever seen on 

a man. 

Enormous strength, honed and chipped 

in that stinking, fetid gym for which we 

paid 30p for the day. He carried an early 

style boom box cassette player everywhere 

he went, blasting out LL Cool J at bone 

shaking volume. I can still hear it. 

It’s now 30 years since that summer 

faded into 85s grey autumnal mists, 

and I often wonder how Bernie K, Jones 

and the rest of the crew fared as the 

London we knew as young men gradually 

gave way to the dominance of the City 

and the gentrification of the streets we 

once owned. 

What I do know is that, like me, they 

would have a good laugh at the 1Rebel £20 

Destination Reshape sessions. And the 

‘celebrity’ playlists. 

“Yo,” I hear Jones cackling down the 

years. “Yo, you want to train?? Man, you 

just get on and work that bag bro.” 



AWARD WINNERS 

THE CICM 

BRITISH CREDIT 

AWARDS 2016 

ARE NOW 

OPEN 

THE WINNERS TAKE IT ALL 

(PART TWO) 

With entries already coming in for the 2016 CICM British Credit Awards, Alex Simmons 

asks the 2015 Award winners what it has meant to them and how they think it has helped 

their business. 

PROMOTING EXCELLENCE TO OUR PEERS 

ALL of the team at The Sheriffs Office were 

delighted to win the CICM British Credit 

Award for Enforcement Team of the Year 

2015. 

We are authorised High Court 

Enforcement Officers and enforce unpaid 

judgments and orders for the recovery of 

money, assets and property. 

Winning the award is a powerful 

endorsement of the importance of 

our ongoing commitment to educate 

creditors and solicitors about High Court 

enforcement and demonstrates how 

accessible and effective it is. This has taken 

the form of articles, newsletters, videos, 

eBook guides and webinars, as well as 

presenting at many industry events. 

In a desire to reach a wider audience 

beyond credit managers, business owners 

and lawyers, we approached TV production 

companies with an idea for a programme 

that showed debt is not just a problem 

for debtors, but also very much so for 

creditors, and that High Court enforcement 

is an effective method of recovery. 

BBC One commissioned ‘The Sheriffs 

Are Coming’, and little could we have 

anticipated the success of the programme. 

There have now been four daytime series, 

three primetime and over 30 million viewers, 

all of which were undoubtedly a factor 

behind the 8.4 percent increase in High 

Court writs enforced in 2013. 

Our education commitment has resulted 

in a very high level of engagement and 

brand awareness. This has generated 

strong business growth – our market share 

has risen from 0.9 percent to 15 percent 

since 2008, taking us to the fourth largest. 

We find clients and prospective clients 

are impressed that we were chosen as the 

winners from amongst strong competition. 

David Carter, CEO of the Sheriffs Office, 

winners of Enforcement Team of the 

Year. 

RECORD BREAKING YEAR CAPPED WITH FIRST AWARD 

WINNING a CICM British Credit Award 

was not only a fantastic boost for the 

entire team at Nucleus, but we all enjoyed 

the gala dinner immensely. It is always 

great to win awards, and for us this was 

our first, so it was extra special! 

It is a great achievement for the entire 

team to go one better than when we 

were also shortlisted in 2014. Last year 

was a fantastic year for us; we have 

seen a record number of enquiries and 

deals completed, and are one of the only 

financiers to regularly arrange deals up to 

and including £10 million. It is a credit to 

my dedicated team that we also have not 

lost a single client to a competitor in all 

that time, and have this award to add to 

our list of achievements. 

During the first month after our win, 

we used the opportunity as a great reason 

for reaching out to our existing customers 

and letting them know we had won, but 

also as a push to potential new businesses 

too. 

Although it may not have generated 

any new business leads per se, it is always 

great to be benchmarked against your 

competitors and to have been chosen as 

the best among them, especially from such 

a highly respected institution as CICM. 

Chirag Shah, Chief Executive, Nucleus 

Commercial Finance, winners of 

Commercial Finance Provider of the 

Year. 



INDUSTRY LINKS CRUCIAL IN AWARDS SUCCESS 

WE’RE absolutely delighted with this 

recognition for the team, as every one of 

them is truly dedicated to helping to make 

life easier for customers who may be 

experiencing financial difficulties, or who 

need that extra bit of support with their 

accounts. 

Helping our customers deal with short 

or longer-term issues is a very important 

part of what we do. We’ve taken a very 

different approach to this, by engaging 

the support of some very special partners 

and charities, including StepChange Debt 

Charity, Samaritans, MIND (The National 

Association for Mental Health), Macmillan 

Cancer Support and Dementia Friends, an 

Alzheimer’s Society initiative. 

The links to these partners have been 

instrumental in the development of the 

best-in-class services MBNA provides 

for customers. Working much closer 

together has allowed us to identify 

indicators of vulnerability or financial 

difficulty, and that has enabled us to 

achieve results that really do work for our 

customers – something that’s borne out 

by the feedback we are receiving every 

day. 

MBNA’s commitment to helping 

vulnerable customers also extends 

throughout the business, and the team 

has hosted a range of internal events and 

seminars to raise awareness of their work. 

By getting out across the MBNA 

business we’ve been able to further raise 

awareness of vulnerability, and of the 

importance of our customers’ health and 

wellbeing. A number of local and national 

charities have helped us to achieve this, 

and we’re incredibly grateful for their 

ongoing support and partnership. 

The success of the Specialist Support 

Team has resulted in MBNA sharing its 

experiences and processes with a range of 

other companies, in financial services and 

other sectors, across the UK in order to 

help them develop their own strategies for 

supporting vulnerable customers. 

Mike Walsh, Head of the Specialist 

Support Team at MBNA, winners of 

Consumer Collections Team of the 

Year. 

RECOGNITION FROM INDUSTRY PEERS 

DURING the last 25 years of my career, 

spanning just five organisations that are 

all well-known global brands in different 

industries, being nominated for Credit 

Professional of the Year in the augural year 

of Chartered status was truly breathtaking. 

I had tried previously a number of times 

to win the award, being nominated before 

but never the winner. 

I have collected a number of trophies 

with my current employer Adecco, the 

CEO Employee of the Year in 2013, and a 

Superstar Gold Award Winner 2015, giving 

me a great amount of satisfaction and 

pride. A seal of ‘job well done’, ‘amazing 

effort’ are the feelings these leave you 

with. 

The CICM British Credit Award, 

however, has nothing directly to do with 

your own organisation; it is based on 

industry recognition of your personal 

accomplishments by other extremely 

qualified credit managers and finance 

leaders. 

For a brief moment, the reality that I 

was being recognised by my peers in an 

Institute that I have supported, been a 

member of and worn its badge with pride, 

then standing on the stage in front of 

the most qualified CICM professionals in 

the entire world, and receiving the most 

prestigious award, was without the doubt 

the best career moment to date. 

In the glitz and glam world of 

recruitment, and working for a leading 

global recruitment company, Adecco, the 

word soon spread. By noon of the next 

day, CFO, Neil Martin had issued a note 

to our executive board praising me for my 

fantastic contribution and telling everybody 

that he was so proud this accolade was 

now in the Adecco brand. My email 

collapsed then from good wishes from 

every board Director. Once again another 

amazing point in my career. 

Adecco aspires to deliver the best 

to their customer’s globally, and our 

Finance Mission Statement, ‘Shared 

Responsibilities, Shared Success’ is 

testament to that. 

That Adecco will take this success and 

share with its customers is undoubted. 

Martin Kirby, Head of Credit and Risk 

at Adecco UK and EIRE, winner of 

Credit Professional of the Year. 

RAISING THE PROFILE WITHIN THE BUSINESS WORLD 

THE credit management team within Local 

World is absolutely delighted to have 

won an award at the CICM British Credit 

Awards. This was an acknowledgement 

of the team’s efforts and hard work when 

they were working towards achieving the 

CICMQ standard. 

Winning the award has further 

increased the engagement and morale 

of the team generally, which has had 

a positive effect on staff turnover and 

overall performance of the department. 

Debtor days alone have reduced in the 

region of 10 days since the formation of 

Local World, and undoubtedly the CICM 

accreditation process and award has 

contributed to this achievement. 

Additionally, we have found that the 

profile of Local World within the business 

community has increased greatly and 

consequently we have hosted several 

companies who have requested to come 

and see how we are set up and how we 

work. The head of credit management 

has also been asked to talk at several 

CICM and other external events about how 

Local World has achieved its success in 

such a short space of time, given that it 

was only formed at the beginning of 

2013. 

The credit management staff are happy 

and proud to be working for an awardwinning 

company, which shows on a 

day-to-day basis in the performance and 

results generated, and most importantly 

the customers feel it in the way that we 

deal with them. 

Mark Mackey, Head of Credit 

Management at Local World, winners of 

Project of the Year. 



STUDENT DEBT 

DEGREES OF DEBT 

Jem Bosatta, a current student explores the issue of student debt and 

ponders the winners and losers. 



FIFTY Thousand pounds. This is the 

figure that the media likes to quote 

for the average student’s debt upon 

graduation. It’s a dizzying amount, 

especially considering that StepChange, the 

debt advice charity, deals with an average 

of £16,000 debt per client. 

Fifty thousand is a slightly exaggerated 

version of a more precise sum calculated 

by the Institute for Fiscal Studies: £44,305, 

the average amount borrowed by a young 

person studying in England on a three-year 

undergraduate course from the Student 

Loans Company (SLC). This Governmental 

non-profit organisation pays £9,000 to the 

university and a further amount directly to 

the student for living costs, determined 

on a sliding scale based on their residual 

income. 

But regard that fifty thousand as a 

modal average, not a mean, as variations in 

course length, residual income and regional 

prices (London students are entitled to a 

third more maintenance costs) render that 

sum less helpful. Each year of study adds 

another five-figure sum to the total: an 18 

year-old on a free one-year foundation 

course might leave with a debt of under 

£4,000, while a London-based medicine 

student might graduate having to repay 

£54,000 for six years of tuition and a further 

£48,000 for maintenance. 

WHOSE DEBT IS IT ANYWAY? 

The Government loan is not as worrying 

as it looks, because the SLC provides 

a completely unique creditor-debtor 

relationship. It is unique in its collection 

methods, taking repayments via HMRC 

as an ‘added tax’; in its repayment rate, 

as the SLC only collects nine percent 

of earnings above £21,000; and in its 

generous interest rates, with a maximum 

of three percent above inflation for high 

earners and a minimum of nought. Debt 

towards the SLC is not included in credit 

scores or bankruptcy calculations, and 

any outstanding debt thirty years after 

graduation is written off. 

That’s why people call student loans a 

‘good debt’ – and why it’s a potentially raw 

deal for the taxpayer. In the last SLC report, 

the company recouped in repayments 

just 16 percent of almost £10 billion given 

out in 2014. Furthermore, of all accounts 

opened since 2000, just 15 percent have 

broken even. Even before the trebled tuition 

fees begin to take effect, the SLC is owed 

£80 billion, but while that bill will go up, 

the repayment rate will actually go down, 

with graduates repaying an average of two 

percent of their debt each year – lower than 

its growth due to inflation (statistics from 

High Fliers 2015 and SLC 2014 reports). 

The majority of the student population’s 

debt realistically seems to have been 

shouldered by the general people. 

BANK OF MUM AND DAD 

The bill seems big enough already, but 

many would argue the Government isn’t 

going far enough. The National Union of 

Students (NUS) recommends setting aside 

£13,000 per year for anyone studying 

full-time in London, but the SLC supplies 

them with anything as low as £5,205 

per annum and even the lowest-income 

students must tackle a shortfall of over 

£4,000. This demonstrates the unavoidable 

gap between the maintenance allowance 

and the real costs of surviving full-time 

education, examined in detail in The Money 

Charity’s report ‘Set Up To Fail’. The report 

iterated, not for the first time, that ‘even the 

maximum support available doesn’t simply 

cover the cost of student living.’ 

There is an expectation, therefore, 

that parents will foot the balance of the 

bill, according to the report. This is hardly 

breaking news either, but it has never been 

explicitly stated by the Government or 

universities that students should be relying 

on their families well into their university 

years – a time when they should be learning 

financial independence. To parents, the 

prospect of facing additional support of 

up to £750 per month can be a huge and 

unwelcome shock, leaving one in ten to go 

into additional debt themselves (according 

to reports on the BBC). 

Of course there are other possible 

income sources: jobs; savings; hardship 

funds. But a full-time course limits working 

hours, demands a flexible and volatile 

schedule and requires a lenient boss, 

none of which render students particularly 

attractive employment prospects and 

impinge on their earning potential. In any 

case, hardship funds are supposed to be 

for exceptional circumstances, not regular 

support. 

THE PAYDAY DILEMMA 

The system’s reliance on family support 

is proven by what happens when parents’ 

pockets are not deep enough, or when 

they simply do not have any pockets at 

all: real debt. Older students, such as 

postgraduates, suffer particularly, with 

two in three turning to conventional 

credit; students in their thirties and 

those estranged from their parents are 

also vulnerable, and 40 percent more 

likely to seek credit. Students from care 

backgrounds are four times more likely 

to be among the 32,000 students to use 

payday lenders (see the Unite Students 

Insight Report 2014). 

The real trouble with using payday 

lenders is, of course, that students 

don’t tend to have paydays, with only 

39 percent of undergraduates in 

employment. Carole Hughes, Managing 

Director at debt collectors Daniels 

Silverman Ltd, does not see it as a 

sustainable choice: “We do not want or 

expect a student to get finance from a 

payday lender.,” she says. Unfortunately, 

it is a growing trend, particularly among 

black students and disabled students, 

raising the question whether support fund 

managers should be particularly aware of 

We can’t expect students 

to become responsible 

savers, credit users and 

planners if staying out 

of the red at university is 

impossible. 

CEO Michelle Highman 

The Money Charity 

the marginalised student groups. 

Wary of credit in the formative years, 

Carole believes that if matters are not 

addressed quickly they can cause problems 

down the line. This echoes the observation 

of a StepChange spokesperson, who 

predicts that early debt will see students 

pitched into difficulty in later life. Adding her 

voice is The Money Charity’s CEO Michelle 

Highman: “We can’t expect students to 

become responsible savers, credit users 

and planners if staying out of the red at 

university is impossible.” The experts 

are in consensus: for a student to turn 

to more lenders is a deeply undesirable 

situation. But the consequences of financial 

pressures at this stage are not limited to the 

bank account. 

FINANCIAL STRESS 

The danger of financial stress to 

mental health is evoked by testimonials 

from student sufferers of depression 

and eating disorders in The Guardian, one 

of whom – a Masters student on benefits 

– is convinced that ‘her mental health, 

poverty, austerity and education 

are intertwined.’ Earlier, I suggested that 

tuition loans are ‘out of mind’ for students, 

but an American paper published in 

February (‘Sick of our loans’ by Walsemann, 

Gee & Gentile) suggests otherwise. The 

study leader spoke to Science Daily about 

the black shadow of tuition loans: “You 

cannot defer them. They follow you for the 

rest of your life until you pay them off.” The 

paper is conclusive: debt and a suffering 

psyche are married from early on. 

This ultimate sacrifice for a sufficiently 

financed degree typically won’t be reckoned 

on by prospective students, because the 

much-discussed fifty thousand-pound 

beast distracts from the more pressing 

problem at the core of the system: these 

hidden financial obstacles and their 

consequences only rear up when it’s too 

late. 

And the SLC? With a bill of £80 

billion set to skyrocket and no prospect 

of recouping any healthy proportion for 

decades, it is clear that the arrangement is 

unsustainable. The learners, the educators 

and the providers are all left dissatisfied – 

nobody here is a winner. 



LEGAL MATTERS 

NEW PERSONAL 

INSOLVENCY RULES 

EMMA EMERY IS A PARTNER AT FREETHS : emma.emery@freeths.co.uk 

In this month’s legal matters we explain the changes to the Insolvency Rules that are due 

to come into force on 1 October 2015. 

THE Government has published 

new legislation which will raise the 

threshold debt required for creditors' 

bankruptcy petitions (the ‘bankruptcy 

level’) and to make various debtor-friendly 

adjustments to the eligibility criteria for debt 

relief orders. 

BANKRUPTCY LEVEL 

Under the new legislation the bankruptcy 

level will be raised from £750 to £5,000 

– i.e. creditors will need to be owed a 

minimum of £5,000 before they are able to 

petition for a debtor’s bankruptcy. This is 

the first increase for 30 years, the threshold 

having been set at £750 in 1986, and is 

higher than the industry was expecting. 

These changes are extremely important 

since at the current level of £750 creditors 

are able to force individuals into bankruptcy 

for relatively small debts and Statutory 

Demands for small debts often lead to 

the debts being paid before the need to 

proceed with a Bankruptcy Petition. 

The new level will apply to bankruptcy 

petitions presented by creditors on or after 

1 October 2015. For all bankruptcy petitions 

presented to the court by creditors before 

that date the current bankruptcy level of 

£750 will continue to apply. 

Giles Frampton, Past President of 

insolvency trade body R3 says: “The rise 

in creditor bankruptcy petition threshold 

is welcome, although £5,000 is far higher 

than expected. It is right that the petition 

be increased: £750 was an entirely 

inappropriate level and the protection it 

offered debtors had been steadily eroded 

by inflation over the last three decades" 

The increase in the bankruptcy level will 

mean that the creditors lose the choice of 

bankrupting a debtor who does not owe 

them at least £5,000 and so many creditors 

are likely to find themselves having little 

other choice than to issue County Court 

claims to try and recover monies that are 

due to them. Fortunately claims of under 

£5,000 have not been affected by the recent 

court fee hikes. It will also mean, in theory, 

fewer bankruptcy petitions. According to 

the Insolvency Service analysis about 20 

percent of all bankruptcies in 2013/2014 

were for debts under £5,000. 

It is not necessarily a bad thing if there 

are less bankruptcies since you may have a 

good customer who always pays you 

on time but is made bankrupt by another 

(and most probably more aggressive) 

creditor which severs your own continuing 

business relationship and revenue over 

a small debt that may have been owed 

elsewhere. 

So whilst this change may mean fewer 

bankruptcies, conversely the changes to 

Debt Relief Orders (DRO’s) means that there 

are likely to be more people eligible to apply 

for them. 

DEBT RELIEF ORDERS 

A DRO provides a low cost alternative to 

bankruptcy for those with very low assets 

and income and who have debt which they 

are unable to pay. Currently, the maximum 

amount of debt which can be included in 

a DRO is £15,000. The amount of assets 

an individual can own when applying for a 

DRO is £300. 

From 1 October 2015, the thresholds in 

respect of the amount of debt and assets 

an individual can have increases so that 

individuals will be eligible to apply for a 

DRO if they: 

1. Owe debts of up to £20,000, rather than 

£15,000 under the current rules; 

2. Have assets worth up to £1,000, rather 

than up to £300 at present; and 

3. Have a maximum monthly surplus 

income of £50 (no change). 

These changes come following falling 

insolvency numbers over the last few 

years. The rationale behind the changing 

rules is to allow more people to find a 

resolution when faced with debts they 

cannot pay and to make the sum required 

to trigger bankruptcy more proportionate 

to the sanctions faced. The new legislation 

ensures that bankruptcy, which has 

the most significant consequences for 

individuals, is reserved for those with 

substantial debts. 

The new monetary limits for DROs are 

said to reflect the cost of living today and 

associated debt levels. The new rules will 

open up the opportunity of DROs to more 

individuals. 

If you have any questions or require 

any further information about the changes 

please do not hesitate to contact one of our 

team on the CICM Legal Helpline. 

AS A CICM MEMBER YOU CAN RECEIVE FREE LEGAL ADVICE FROM FREETHS 

CALL THE CICM LEGAL HELPLINE 0845 0779698 



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OPINION 

COUNTING 

THE CARDS 

Adam Bernstein looks into the effect that new regulations 

for card payments will have on service providers. 

EUROPE has for some time been 

concerned about the cost of debit 

and credit card transactions charged 

to traders (and therefore passed on 

to consumers) within the EU, and in mid- 

March the European Parliament passed 

legislation to cap the cost of these hidden 

transactions. With 95.7 million debit cards 

and 61.7 million credit cards in circulation in 

the UK alone, what does this all mean and 

how will it affect consumers and traders 

alike? 

The European Commission wants 

to improve competition for all card 

payments. It estimates that the rules, when 

implemented, could lead to a reduction 

of about six billion a year in hidden fees 

charged to consumer cards. The Regulation 

on interchange fees for card-based 

payment transactions follows a Commission 

proposal put forward in July 2013, and 

it is hoped that it will give more freedom 

of choice to traders while making card 

transactions more transparent. 

The regulation is driven by the fact that 

Europe thinks the variety of interchange 

fees between EU countries, indirectly 

charged to traders by card issuing banks 

when a customer uses their card, is difficult 

to justify and has ‘hindered integration and 

innovation of the EU payments market.’ 

Amanda Hulme, a partner in the financial 

regulation group at Addleshaw Goddard, 

notes the impact of the present – soon to 

be abolished – fee structure. “According 

to the Competition and Markets Authority, 

Visa currently charges 8p per debit card 

transaction and 0.77 percent of the 

transaction value for consumer credit 

cards,” she says. 

“In comparison, Mastercard typically 

charges 7-11p per Mastercard and Maestro 

debit card transaction, 0.8 percent of 

transaction values for ‘standard’ consumer 

credit cards, and 1.05 to 1.5 percent for 

‘premium’ consumer credit cards.” 

BACKGROUND TO THE CHANGE 

Interchange fees are multilaterally agreed 

fees payable between the consumer’s card 

issuing bank and the bank that handles a 

trader’s account – the card acquirer. 

In the vast majority of cases, the trader’s 

bank pays these fees to the consumer’s 

bank for each transaction. The most 

common type of card scheme is the socalled 

‘four-party’ scheme which features, 

as the name suggests, four parties – a card 

issuer, consumer, trader (merchant) and 

a card acquirer. Under this arrangement, 

a multilaterally agreed interchange fee is 

usually in place between the trader’s card 

acquirer and the consumer’s card issuer. 

For each transaction, the trader pays a 

fee to its bank called a merchant service 

charge (MSC) – the acquiring bank pays the 

merchant the sales price after deduction 

of the MSC. Most of the MSC is made up 

of the interchange fee – other elements 

include a card scheme fee (network fee) and 

a fee paid by the merchant for the services 

of the acquiring bank. The interchange 

fee is then passed on by the bank for the 

merchant to the bank for the consumer. In 

competition law cases it has been found 

that interchange fees act as a minimum 

price floor and determine to a large extent 

the price charged by banks to merchants 

for card acceptance. 

THE PROBLEM 

When someone buys something in a store 

using a credit or debit card for example, 

these costs are hidden from the consumer 

and worse, neither retailer or consumer can 

alter these rates or shop around for the best 

deal. The only limiting factor on these rates 

is competition law. 

Clearly costs need to be absorbed 

somewhere and so traders pass these costs 

on to consumers, and this leads to inflated 

prices or traders making less margin. 

Europe has taken both Visa and 

Mastercard to task over the issue. Visa 

in 2010 and 2014 agreed to reduce its 

maximum average interchange fees for 

debit cards to 0.2 percent and to 0.3 

percent for credit cards. Mastercard on the 

other hand found itself before the European 

Court of Justice which, in September 



2014, said that such interchange fees are 

a violation of EU antitrust rules. These new 

rates need to be shown in context that they 

are an average and were not compulsorily 

held down. 

A NEW REGIME 

Once implemented, the regulation will 

formally and legally cap interchange fees 

at 0.2 percent of the transaction value for 

consumer debit cards and at 0.3 percent 

for consumer credit cards. However after 

a five-year transition period, for smaller 

transactions only, member states can 

choose to set a maximum fixed fee of 0.05 

(4p) per transaction instead of a 0.2 percent 

fee. There's no definition of what a ‘smaller’ 

transaction is, this will be up to the UK 

Government and each individual member 

state to decide. 

Interestingly, in terms of consumer debit 

cards, the regulation also gives flexibility to 

member states to define lower percentage 

caps and impose maximum fee amounts. 

The European Commission thinks that 

the recently passed regulation should 

increase transparency and ‘help the 

card payments industry move from its 

current business practices to a new more 

competitive system, to the benefit of 

consumers, merchants and banks.’ The 

new regime should also deal with licensing 

issues and other conditions that have 

restricted the freedom of choice of retailers 

to choose payment methods. 

With an eye to the future, the 

regulation removes major obstacles to 

technological innovation in payment 

options. Many with a recent iPhone know, 

for example, that their device features a 

NFC payment chip that, when enabled in 

Europe, allows swipe-based payments 

from their mobile phone. Of course there 

are other technologies in the market 

that allow consumers to pay via an app 

or with a fingerprint. However, Europe 

reckons that uncertainty on the rules 

regarding interchange fees has been one 

of the factors holding up the use of these 

systems. 

The regulation needs to be agreed in 

the same form by both the European 

Parliament and the European Council and 

then formally adopted, says Hulme: “It will 

apply from 20 days after publication in the 

Official Journal of the European Union, 

expected some point in 2015. The cap will 

then apply six months after the regulation 

enters into force.” 

GOING FORWARD 

Some have suggested that when the 

interchange fees drop under the new 

regulation that retailers could see a 

windfall and pocket the difference by not 

passing on the savings – ‘a mere 5p on 

a typical £48 transaction to consumers’ 

according to the UK Cards Association. 

Indeed, a report in the Daily Mail quoted 

Visa as saying that clarity on the fees was 

welcome, but warned it could hurt the 

cards industry. Visa too has said there was 

no guarantee that retailers would pass 

savings on to consumers. It’s questionable 

how the savings would be passed on as 

traders cannot differentiate between cash 

and card prices. 

The comparison website uSwitch 

has made the point that both Spain and 

Australia have had fee caps for some time. 

While there has been no fall in retail prices 

according to a report from European 

Economics for Mastercard: “The economic 

impact of interchange fee regulation in the 

UK,” cardholders in these countries still 

enjoy fee free credit and debit cards. 

Others, including Hulme, have 

suggested that the card fees need to 

be covered one way or another and so 

consumers could see the benefits of card 

use (say cashback or rewards points) 

drop: “profit margins for banks and 

card issuers on all debit and credit card 

products will reduce and in consequence 

there is likely to be a decline in the issue 

of loyalty/rewards cards.” uSwitch thinks 

the same: “While the changes will not 

have any substantive effect on the average 

person, what they will most likely mean is 

the end of the era of free rewards credit 

card.” 

That said, the market for cards is very 

competitive and, assuming a good credit 

background, consumers should find it 

easy to change to a better deal. 

The new rules will affect all payments 

involving Visa and Mastercard, which 

account for most of the payment card 

market. However, the price cap will not 

apply for three years to so-called threeparty 

card schemes, such as Diners and 

American Express, which involve only one 

bank. Commercial cards used only for 

business expenses and consumer cards 

used in an ATM will also be exempt from 

the new price cap. 



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INTERVIEW: 

ALTERNATIVE FINANCE FEATURE 

PERSONAL ASSET 

Sean Feast speaks to Jeff Longhurst about the need for greater 

‘professionalisation’ of the Asset Based Finance industry. 

JEFF Longhurst has worked in 

commercial lending for more 

than 35 years and is now Chief 

Executive of the Asset Based 

Finance Association (ABFA). But it might 

have been very different had he pursued 

his original career thinking: “I thought 

I might have made a good corporate 

lawyer,” he explains, “and since I had 

never seen a poor lawyer, it seemed like 

a good idea. I read Law at university 

but as it was, I never enjoyed it. I really 

should have read history – the Tudors or 

the Stuarts. I recall in my interview being 

asked who I most admired and I said it 

was Thomas Cromwell because he had 

an orderly mind.” 

Born in Llanelli, and still a big Scarlets 

rugby fan, Jeff was educated at the local 

grammar school before going up to Trinity 

Hall, Cambridge between 1974 – 77, a 

contemporary of the film and theatre 

director, Sir Nicholas Hytner, whose works 

include The Madness of King George. He 

did what many students did, spending 


a great deal of time on the sports and 

athletics field whilst still doing enough to 

graduate with an MA. “I was particularly 

adept at throwing the Javelin,” he recalls. 

Although a career in law beckoned, 

Jeff opted instead to go into banking, 

joining the Midland Bank as a graduate 

trainee in 1978. It was at Midland that 

his interest in factoring began, having 

been sent on a course and joining Griffin 

Factors, in his words, ‘to learn the ropes’. 

From Griffin he joined Alex Lawrie, then 

owned by Lloyds Bowmaker, and his 

career flourished. After eight years at 

Alex Lawrie he was moved to Lloyds 

Bowmaker’s leasing division, gaining 

a broader experience of ‘lending’, and 

giving him exposure to risk to add to his 

operations expertise. 

Indeed his CV reads rather like a 

‘who’s who’ of specialist lenders at that 

time, including Metropolitan Factors 

where he ended up as Managing Director, 

and with whom he worked with the 

property development business GLE to 

set up GLE Invoice Finance (which later 

became Independent Growth Finance - 

IGF). 

A spell at Eurofactor/Credit Agricole 

was especially rewarding, taking a small 

business with comparatively few clients 

to a large asset based lending firm with 

more than £300 million of cash out. 

After Eurofactor was sold, he spent an 

enjoyable six months as an editorial 

consultant with BCR, before joining Dave 

Richards, his former partner with IGF, at 

boutique lender Gener8 and heading up 

Operations and Risk. 

Jeff has always been interested in 

growing businesses from scratch, or 

taking an existing business and helping 

to improve it. A serendipitous phone call 

to Kate Sharp at the Asset Based Finance 

Association (ABFA) led to an interview for 

and ultimately appointment as the new 

Chief Executive: “I said I’d always wanted 

the challenge of running the ABFA,” he 

admits, “and I saw it as an opportunity to 

focus on what I think I am good at.” 



 

In his new role, Jeff has a refreshingly 

candid view of his industry which, he 

says, has been too pre-occupied with 

looking inwards: “We are hugely selfcritical 

and self-analytical,” he says, 

“when what we should be doing is 

spending more time looking outwards and 

celebrating the support that we provide to 

thousands of businesses each year. 

“We have also been so pre-occupied 

with risk as an industry,” he continues, 

“that we get bogged down in contracts 

that are inches thick and unnecessarily 

complicated for a service that should be 

very easy to understand, straightforward 

to manage; and very low risk if you are 

running your business properly. We 

should be the first port of call when 

working capital is required to grow a 

business, but that is not always the case.” 

Jeff believes that part of the problem 

is historic; the ‘F’ word, as he calls it, has 

been unfairly demonised: “Yes we do 

business that many of the banks are not 

interested in and we still go into situations 

where other funders fear to tread. But 

in doing so we have somehow gained 

a reputation as being only for those 

businesses that are failing, and successful 

businesses have been put off coming 

to our members simply because of past 

reputational issues.” 

With further candour, Jeff says that in 

recent years the industry has not done 

itself any favours: “The treatment of some 

of our customers has been portrayed 

by some outsiders using social media 

as very poor,” he adds, “and this hasn’t 

helped our cause. In fact, pressure from 

government, the rise of the ‘alternative’ 

lending sector, and the launch of new 

independents, has helped to drive a more 

customer-centric culture into which the 

banks have had to follow suit. Indeed 

the banks are now possibly even more 

compassionate and more customer 

friendly than even the independents, 

and certainly things have changed 

dramatically over the last five years.” 

Customer satisfaction, Jeff says, 

has been improved both by a change in 

culture and an improvement in systems: 

“Systems have an important role to play 

but personal contact on a regular basis is 

vital. The client manager has effectively 

taken over the role that used to be the 

domain of the ‘traditional’ bank manager.” 

Despite Jeff’s passion to see his 

industry better represented, and better 

utilised, he points to a recent SME 

Finance Monitor that suggests that small 

businesses are not as eager for cash as 

the government appears to imply: “The 

reality is that not every business either 

wants or needs money. So I am not 

SYSTEMS HAVE AN 

IMPORTANT ROLE TO PLAY 

BUT PERSONAL CONTACT ON 

A REGULAR BASIS IS VITAL. 

THE CLIENT MANAGER HAS 

EFFECTIVELY TAKEN OVER THE 

ROLE THAT USED TO BE THE 

DOMAIN OF THE ‘TRADITIONAL’ 

BANK MANAGER. 

26 

October 2015 www.cicm.com 


convinced that the capacity for growth is 

there at present. Supply actually exceeds 

demand, and fewer firms are looking for 

funding now than they were seven or 

eight years ago.” 

There’s an argument that as we 

come out of a recession first the bigger 

businesses start to grow, then the midcorporate 

tier will follow, followed by 

the SMEs: “The number of companies 

turning over more than £100 million that 

are using asset based finance has grown 

considerably, so the need for finance 

should filter down to the SMEs,” he says. 

“But for more and smaller businesses to 

look at asset based finance we need to 

up our game with the advisor community 

and better communicate the strength 

of the product, and how the finance we 

provide grows as the business grows.” 

Two years ago the industry found itself 

under a sustained assault from certain 

parts of the media, keen to highlight 

examples of poor practice. Since that 

time, the ABFA has introduced a new 

self-regulatory framework, and created 

a new complaints procedure through an 

independent ombudsman. It has also 

been working with members to look at 

contracts, and how they can be made 

easier to understand and with less small 

print. “We are gradually building trust,” 

Jeff explains, “and it is clear that our 

members are embracing change – not just 

a cultural change, but already a tangible 

and visible change. 

“We need to ‘sell’ the positive side of 

what we do, and use testimonials from 

companies we have helped. There is this 

‘inner fear’ that invoice finance has to 

be kept confidential, but why is that so? 

Why is it a negative message to say ‘we 

are factoring because we are a growing 

business, and not because we are in 

trouble’? We need to change that mind 

set.” 

Membership of the ABFA has 

grown under Jeff’s stewardship to 45, 

an interesting mix of large and small, 

independent and mainstream. The 

industry too has grown by c9 percent, 

but growth has been at the top end and 

not among SMEs where Jeff believes the 

focus needs to be. The total number of 

clients has remained comparatively static 

at c44,800, which means that volumes 

are standing still. So what needs to be 

done? 

Jeff’s view is that there is no single 

action required, but rather a series of 

little shifts: “As the chief executive of an 

association you have to persuade, cajole 

and explain; you can’t just ‘do’ things in 

the way you can when you are running 

a business. It’s like eating an elephant; 

you have to do it one bite at a time. The 

important thing is that you know where 

WE NEED TO DEMONSTRATE A 

GREATER ‘PROFESSIONALISATION’ 

OF OUR INDUSTRY,” LAST YEAR 

WE PROVIDED MORE THAN 

55,000 HOURS OF TRAINING, AND 

THIS YEAR WE EXPECT TO DO 

MORE. 

– JEFF LONGHURST 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE ABFA 

you want to get to in the end.” 

These ‘little things’ have included 

a review of membership fees to 

encourage smaller independents and a 

broader representation of views; further 

revisions to the regulatory framework 

to create even greater transparency in 

the relationship between the member 

and their clients; and a review of 

commission payments to brokers. “It’s 

not an overnight job,” he continues, “and 

it is complicated by the fact that the 

independents, the challenger banks, and 

the mainstream banks all want different 

things.” 

In terms of making his industry 

easier to understand, one of the ABFA’s 

ongoing projects is to create an agreed 

set of common terms. Jeff admits 

that sometimes the industry does not 

help itself: “We need to look at the 

most commonly used terms and find 

agreement on the language we use,” he 

says. “For example, is it an administration 

fee or a service fee, and are they the 

same? Is it a pre-payment or an initial 

payment? It is not a simple thing to make 

such a change – many of the banks are 

foreign owned and the changes required 

to documentation could be substantial, 

but in the long run it will help our 

members and our industry.” 

Jeff’s ultimate ambition for the 

Association is for it to become the ‘go to’ 

place for information on and advice on 

invoice finance and asset based lending, 

where the ABFA ‘brand’ is respected as 

a symbol of trust and best practice. But 

the ABFA needs to do more to market 

itself: “We are good at working with the 

Department for Business, Innovation and 

Skills, HM Treasury, the Law Commission, 

as well as with other like-minded business 

organisations including the CICM 

and FSB where we have established 

communication channels. We are always 

consulted on issues impacting SMEs 

access to finance, and often punch well 

above our weight. Sometimes, however, 

our lobbying efforts are at the expense of 

what we might call ‘old style marketing’, 

and helping people to better understand 

what we do and what being a member of 

our Association means.” 

A utopian world, Jeff suggests, 

would be for the ABFA website to be the 

ultimate reference site for SMEs in need 

of funding: “It would show our members 

and their specialisms, and who the SME 

would be best speaking to based on 

their need. Brokers, of course, have an 

essential role to play in this process, but 

the information should also be readily 

available through our website.” 

Like any membership organisation, 

Jeff recognises that his members have 

to come first. Learning and development 

is an increasingly important part of 

what the ABFA provides, alongside 

Continuing Professional Development 

(CPD): “We need to demonstrate a greater 

‘professionalisation’ of our industry,” he 

says. “Last year we provided more than 

55,000 hours of training, and this year we 

expect to do more.” Jeff is also looking 

at what lessons can be learned from his 

counterparts in Europe and especially the 

USA: “The UK is still the biggest market 

for invoice finance,” he concludes, “but 

there are clear opportunities for our 

members to learn from what is happening 

in other countries especially from the 

development of the industry in the USA.” 

Jeff is confident of the continued 

success and development of Asset 

Based Finance in the UK: “There is a 

genuine commitment amongst all ABFA 

members to changing the face of Asset 

Based Finance in the UK and making it 

the first choice for working capital for 

new businesses just starting up to mid– 

corporates on the acquisition trail.” 





COMING OF AGE 

The stigmas of the past and the technology of the future – what’s next for invoice 

finance ponders Mike Boswell of Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance. 

services that were previously the reserve 

of banks. So what are all the implications 

for invoice finance? 

AS financial pundits continue to 

craze about Fintech, Peer-to- 

Peer and equity Crowd Funding, 

invoice finance is the alternative 

form of lending that has quietly come of 

age. Its extraordinary growth is casting 

away negative perceptions, but traditional 

providers cannot be complacent with its 

success. 

While the outlook for invoice finance 

now is good, it wasn’t always this way. 

In the past, the ‘lender of last resort’ did 

damage to the industry. Compared with 

traditional bank loans, lending criteria can 

be more flexible since the client’s debtor 

book is used as security. However the 

benefactors of invoice finance are not 

struggling businesses, on the contrary, 

as of March this year most asset based 

lending went to big ticket businesses 

with an annual turnover of £100 million 

and above. For these businesses, the 

funding provides the flexibility to plan and 

manage cash flow. 

The ‘lender of last resort’ stigma 

also talks down small and medium 

sized enterprises who suffer from late 

payments. While we may have finally 

entered a period of sustained economic 

growth, the issue has only got worse. 

The average wait for payment has now 

reached a new high of 72 days for the 

smallest enterprises. 

It doesn’t matter how solid a 

business’ model is, if a company is not 

getting paid for its products or services, 

then the firm will never reap any benefit. 

Invoice finance can ensure that arbitrary 

delays do not hold businesses back, by 

immediately unlocking dormant credit 

frozen in late invoices. The government 

recently announced a ban on contract 

clauses that prevent suppliers from 

gaining invoice finance, in a move that 

recognises the value of this form of 

lending and the impact it can have on 

SME suppliers. 

As invoice finance continues to 

prove itself, the financial industry is 

facing a technological sea change. For 

many commentators, finance will be 

revolutionised just like the music, news 

and taxi industry. Its impact is already 

being felt, in the way of new payments 

technology, personal finance and lending 

apps – it’s beginning to offer us financial 

ALTERNATIVE FUNDS 

By offering an alternative funding vehicle, 

the most direct challenge comes in 

the form of peer-to-peer and equity 

crowdfunding. These platforms can 

bypass banks and link those who demand 

credit with individuals or organisations 

who can supply it. However so far these 

platforms have only attracted high 

risk, high reward investors, and seed 

stage companies have been the largest 

beneficiaries. Peer-to-peer lending 

reached a record high in Q4 last year, 

with £500 million being transferred. In 

the same period, more than £15 billion of 

invoice finance was provided for UK firms. 

It remains to be seen whether these new 

platforms can broaden their appeal. 

Yet Fintech goes far beyond 

alternative finance. The reason why it’s 

created so much buzz is because it has 

the potential to really streamline and 

transform interactions between banks 

and its customers. With almost 38 million 

smartphone users in the UK, there’s a 

pent up demand for greater interactivity 

– we can now pay with our phones, and 

even control our household appliances 

from a tablet. Fintech explores how this 

can be applied in the world of banking. 

Invoice finance has already come a 

long way over the past five years with 

IT capability that imports data from 

clients own accounts packages, and 

we’ve been delivering payments faster 

than ever before. However we can take 

inspiration from Fintech and adapt further 

by developing mobile apps to enable 

customers to access secure data from the 

touch of a button, and ensuring we deliver 

our services at even quicker pace, all at a 

lower cost. This way lenders can bolster 

their offering, not just for the sake of 

invoice finance, but for the sake of small 

business owners who deserve the very 

best we can offer. 

Mike Boswell is a Sales Director at 

Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking 



CHALLENGING TIMES 

Simon Carter, Director of Touch Financial, says that banks must respond to 

Fintech challenge. 

FINTECH, the alternative funding 

market, is growing on a phenomenal 

scale. The evidence is there for 

those who choose to look. Indeed a 

recent report shows that the total amount 

lent in 2014 had more than doubled from 

the previous year – up from £666 million 

to more than £1.74 billion. Whereas this 

is a mere fraction of the total advanced 

in the ‘traditional’ space - £18.9 billion 

according to latest figures from the Asset 

Based Finance Association (ABFA) – this 

new kid on the block is fast growing out of 

short trousers and becoming established 

as a mainstream player. 

Figures from Touch Financial, the 

largest independent asset based lending 

brokerage, lend further support to the 

Fintech growth story. In 2014, the total 

percentage of deals completed with 

Fintech providers grew to (c10 percent) 

from a position of [less than one percent] 

the previous year. For those who 

suggested that Fintech may be just a flash 

in the pan, it seems they were wrong and 

that the alternative market is here to stay. 

But that’s not to say that there are still 

not concerns. Fintech businesses have 

been clever. They have looked at the 

‘traditional’ market, recognised its value 

and importance, and then looked at ways 

in which it could be improved. Partly this 

has been through the development of 

new technology platforms that simplify 

the product and its delivery, and partly 

through finding new ways of accessing 

cash, such as peer-to-peer. They have 

been clever too in creating new channels 

to market, understanding a company’s 

pressure points and capitalising on them, 

as in the recent tie up between Sage and 

Market Invoice and Funding Circle. 

These alternative providers have never 

been exposed to the same levels of risk 

as their ‘traditional’ partners, and appear 

to portray less fear and a different mindset. 

To some this may appear ‘cavalier’ 

but those who thought that the alternative 

model (and especially peer-to-peer) would 

soon be found wanting and implode have 

not (yet) been proven right. Yes Fintech 

firms may still trip over but they have 

shown the way. What the ‘traditional’ 

players must do now is respond, and 

respond positively. 

What is good about the rise of Fintech 

is that it has once again shone a spotlight 

on the invoice finance sector. Fintech firms 

have taken something that has always 

been good, and made it better and – dare I 

say it – ‘sexier’. 

The media like shiny new things to 

write about, and Fintech has provided 

the ideal subject matter: bright young 

things delivering the funding to other 

bright young things while the rest of us 

stand by the sidelines and admire. But 

looking at this in another way, Fintech 

provides the traditional lenders with 

the perfect opportunity to respond. It 

is the mainstream banks that have the 

infrastructure, the customer base and 

– most importantly – the experience to 

adapt their current thinking, streamline 

their service, and grow the market still 

further. Far from being a threat to the 

traditional players, it represents a whole 

new opportunity to re-invent themselves 

and the industry. 

Banks are still the first port of call for 

more than three quarters (78 percent) of 

SME seeking finance. They have not, as 

yet, lost faith. Now what the banks must 

do is rise to the challenge. 


Staff Growth hits 400 Percent after new funding is secured 

SOUTH Healthcare, a recruitment agency 

set up by Cyril Shozi-Xhakaza in October 

2013, specialises in the provision of 

carers and nurses to nursing homes. He 

needed to find a solution to his cashflow 

issues but approaches to his local 

bank fell on deaf ears. He was offered 

a loan, but quickly recognised, even if 

his bank did not, that a loan would not 

be suitable. It would remove a level of 

financial autonomy and control that he felt 

necessary. 

Within two months, Cyril identified 

that if this problem persisted, he would 

no longer be able to pay his staff and the 

long-term viability of the business would 

be impacted. 

Within a week South Healthcare 

signed a deal with one of those 

companies recommended. Now for every 

invoice Cyril generates, he receives 90 

percent of the invoice value upfront and 

the balance once the invoice has been 

settled. 

More than just Interim Solution for Recruitment Company 

TIME and again, recruitment companies 

struggle with cash flow. Interim 

Technologies was facing precisely this 

difficulty. Established in November 

2014 by Paul Macnamara, the company 

provides business-to-business contract 

recruitment, supplying specialist skilled 

workers to the engineering sector. 

After a successful start, Interim 

Technologies started winning further 

contracts, giving it the opportunity to 

slowly expand the business. However, 

recruitment agencies have to pay 

employees, typically, on a weekly basis, 

yet the company itself may not get paid 

for up to 120 days. 

Paul decided to use a broker, and 

approached Touch Financial to explain 

the different funding solutions available 

to him. 

Interim Technologies now expects 

to increase the number of engineers it 

employs has a new funder, and turnover 

is forecast to reach approximately 

£400,000. This has all been made 

possible through a broker’s involvement, 

quickly putting Paul in contact with 

factoring companies that suited his 

specific international needs, and niche 

target market. 




EVOLVE – OR DIE 

Chirag Shah, Chief Executive of Nucleus Commercial Finance, says that the invoice 

finance sector is changing for the better. 

WHETHER the outside world 

realises it or not, the invoice 

finance sector is going through 

radical change. Of course the 

Crowd Funders and Peer-to-Peer lenders 

– companies such as Market Invoice and 

Funding Circle etc – have been the ones 

grabbing the limelight and understandably 

so. 

When a lender is almost falling over 

itself to lend, it is tempting to elevate 

its status to ‘champion’ of the small 

business community virtually overnight. It 

is tempting also for the media to hype to 

the point of over-hyping what is, without 

doubt, an over-crowded and doubtless 

unsustainable business model. 

The challenge for this ‘new’ lending 

community is not what it does now, but 

what it manages to achieve three or four 

years down the line. They may be good 

at getting the money out, but questions 

must remain as regards how good they 

will be at getting their money back. It will 

be good if the platforms can provide the 

amount of capital paid back/recovered 

along with the amount of capital lent. 

The challenge will also become even 

greater when regulation finally takes hold. 

New regulation could do to the Crowd 

Funding world what the arrival of the 

Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) did to 

payday lenders and fee-charging debt 

management companies. They could be 

virtually wiped out overnight. ‘Traditional’ 

lenders that use institutional money are 

strong on regulation; crowd funders 

who rely on retail money may be more 

exposed. 

LESSONS LEARNED 

But that is not to say that Crowd Funders 

and Peer-to-Peer lenders are a bad 

thing. They most certainly are not. For 

they have given the invoice finance 

sector, and especially the ‘traditional’ 

banked providers, a welcome kick up 

the backside. They are obliging them to 

become more flexible in their product 

portfolio and thinking, to enhance 

their customer communication, and to 

accelerate their decision-making. 

What they have also done is to 

highlight the gulf between the ‘haves and 

have nots’ – the banks with their wide 

product portfolio and the Crowd Funders 

and Peer-to-Peer lenders with their niche 

expertise. It means that in the future, the 

‘middle’ players – those who have not 

diversified or expanded their product 

offering – will find themselves increasingly 

squeezed. Worse, perhaps, they will 

struggle to remain relevant. Critical mass 

will become, quite literally, ‘critical’! The 

message to such firms is simple: evolve 

or die. 

But it is not just about increasing 

the suite of products available. It is also 

about elevating the levels of service 

provided. Our industry also needs to be 

much better at communicating what it 

does well. Despite having helped tens 

of thousands of businesses to prosper 

and grow, that message is still somehow 

being lost or ignored by the mainstream 

press and commentators. The industry 

must stop hiding its light under a 

bushel, stop apologising for the past, 

and demonstrate why it is relevant and 

appropriate for the here and now. 

I have read that supply currently 

outstrips demand and that there are, 

in effect, too many players. That is 

undoubtedly true. In the time it has taken 

me to write this piece, no doubt another 

two new lenders have been launched. But 

there is also no doubt that demand for 

finance will increase. 

In the construction sector, for example, 

we have witnessed a number of recent 

business failures including Fairhurst Ward 

Abbotts, GB Building Solutions, and the 

Long Cross Construction among others. 

Ironically, this is a good thing for our 

sector; perversely it increases demand, and 

perhaps demonstrates an economy that is 

truly on the path to a sustained recovery. 

Perhaps we are not out of the woods 

yet, but what is clear is that the invoice 

finance sector of today will look very 

different in four or five years time. Unless 

we adapt. And to that extent, the Crowd 

Funders and Peer-to-Peer lenders have 

perhaps shown us what direction we need 

to take. 



'ASK THE EXPERTS' 

Question: 

What sort of businesses use factoring and invoice discounting and why? 

David Thornley FCICM, Group Credit Controller at Fort Vale Engineering, provides the 

answers and suggests there is no substitute for best-practice credit management. 

LET us consider a typical example of 

a small, owner-managed business. 

The owner is highly skilled in his 

field of activity, he has developed an 

excellent reputation within the confines of 

his industry, his products are of consistently 

high quality, his deliveries are invariably 

on time, and he is personally driven by a 

strong work ethic. He rents a small unit, 

which houses well-maintained but ageing 

machinery. He employs six people and 

has plans to expand into larger premises, 

upgrade his machinery and employ two 

more people. 

His wife helps out part time ‘doing the 

admin’. Childcare restrictions mean that 

she can only attend the office part time, 

between ten and three. Mondays and 

Tuesdays are taken up with calculating 

the previous week’s payroll. Wednesdays 

are the day she sets aside for sending 

out quotations based on her husband’s 

scribbled ‘back of a fag packet’ 

calculations. Thursdays she spends sending 

out sales invoices and entering purchase 

invoices. When Friday comes around, she 

finally has a chance to look at the sales 

ledger, and call a few customers who 

are late in paying. She finds that many of 

those customers have already finished for 

the weekend, or that the purchase ledger 

department only takes calls in the morning. 

Frustrated, she makes a note to call back 

on Monday, but when Monday arrives, 

payroll matters take priority and she forgets. 

BOILING POINT 

Finally, she makes contact with her 

customers, only to find that her invoice has 

missed the cut off for this month’s payment 

run, and it won’t be paid for another 30 

days. Another customer tells her that their 

terms are 60 days, and the invoice is not 

due for another month. She is exasperated 

now, and because she is emotionally 

invested in the success of her husband’s 

business, she loses her temper with the 

accounts clerk on the other end of the 

phone. 

Cash flow has now suddenly become 

an issue; rent and loan repayments are due 

soon, as well as the weekly payroll. The 

two of them get in touch with their bank, 

they suggest a factoring arrangement. This 

seems like the answer to their prayers, 

they receive a percentage of the value 

of their invoices straight away, cash flow 

problems are a thing of the past and 

they don’t have the hassle of chasing up 

customers for payment. 

In examples such as this, factoring 

and/or invoice discounting can, and does, 

work well. It offers a relatively simple and 

workable solution to a difficult, timeconsuming 

and potentially livelihoodthreatening 

problem. It also puts our 

business’ cash collection onto professional 

footing. 

Factoring isn’t cheap, though, and in 

addition, by entering into the factoring 

arrangement, our example business has 

outsourced its most valuable financial 

asset, its debtor book. The factoring 

company now holds in its hands our 

business’ (and its owner’s) hard earned 

good name, its reputation, its goodwill. 

By allowing their debtors ledger to be 

absorbed by the factoring machine, they 

place themselves at its mercy. 

The act of placing your debtor’s ledger 

in the hands of a factoring company 

can send out mixed messages to your 

suppliers and to your customers; on the 

one hand, there is the comfort of the 

increased certainty that the supply chain 

will be protected and that the business 

has taken mature and responsible steps 

to protect its cash position. Conversely, 

however, factoring carries with it the 

implication that a business is struggling 

and has sought the assistance of the 

‘lender of last resort’. 

Third party involvement in transactions 

between companies can often muddy 

the waters and blur the lines of 

communication; this is particularly evident 

in instances where queries are raised 

and invoices disputed. This can cause 

difficulties and potentially damage longstanding 

business relationships. 

But perhaps there is another, better, 

way. What if our business owner and his 

wife received some training? What if they 

acquired the rudimentary skills of best 

practice credit management? This could 

be done reasonably quickly and reasonably 

cheaply. Our business owner would 

learn the importance of agreeing terms 

in advance and making sure that those 

terms were correctly applied in contracts 

with customers. His wife would learn the 

correct way to contact customers; for 

example, that Friday was the worst day 

to attempt telephone collections. She 

would learn how to conduct collection 

calls, how to find the right person to speak 

to; how to control the conversation and 

the importance of putting a follow up 

procedure in place. 

Positive results would be seen quickly, 

incoming funds would go from a trickle to 

a steady flow; she would receive a small 

surge of satisfaction when a remittance 

she had been chasing arrives and pretty 

soon, she would establish a rapport with 

her customers and, instead of becoming 

exasperated, she would start to look 

forward to making her collection calls. 

Businesses such as the one I have 

described are lumped together under 

the title of Small and Medium-sized 

Enterprises (SME’s). These businesses 

represent the throbbing pulse of the 

economy and it seems to me to be 

disingenuous to condense their importance 

to a mere three initials. And given their 

prominence in the economic fabric of 

the nation, is it not of vital importance 

that every effort be made to help them 

succeed? 

Factoring and invoice discounting 

can work well in helping these businesses 

to survive and thrive, and there are, 

in addition, a number of alternative 

finance packages available, some of 

them imaginative, forward-thinking and 

affordable, to assist an up-and –coming 

concern. They all have a place, they 

all have their merits as well as their 

pitfalls, but none of them are, in my 

opinion, really a substitute for applying 

the basic principles of good credit 

management. 





CRYSTAL BALL GAZING 

Richard Pepler looks at the growth of the alternative funding market and makes some 

predictions on what the future holds for this fast growing sector. 

THE so-called alternative funding 

market has changed beyond all 

recognition in recent years – with 

crowdfunding, peer to peer, 

private and angel investment, cash flow 

funding, asset funding and pension 

fund investments to name a few of the 

newer financial vehicles. These are now 

not so much alternative as becoming 

more common place than funding from 

traditional clearing banks. The alternative 

market as a whole now lends more 

to SMEs than clearing banks lend on 

overdraft. Figures for investment derived 

from alternative sources have surged 91 

percent from £492 million in 2012 to £939 

million in 2013 and the market still has 

huge potential for future growth. 

SMEs are the primary users and 

beneficiaries of alternative finance where 

access to working capital can mean 

the difference between success and 

failure. Cashflow is king and increased 

pressure on invoice payments from larger 

corporates means that current time to 

payment in the UK is running at 70 to 80 

days, with some invoices being paid in 

excess of 120 days. This puts enormous 

pressure on the business owner who 

needs access to cash to survive. 

COMING OF AGE 

The concept of alternative funding – 

finance from a source other than one of 

the main clearing banks – dates back to 

1962. However, the market took until the 

early 1990s to find its feet, initially, a few 

key players took market share that was 

followed by a period of consolidation. 

The global recession led to reluctance 

from the banks to extend credit to smaller 

customers, giving rise to the second wave 

of alternative funding growth, which is 

fast becoming the first choice for startups 

and SMEs looking to bank roll growth 

strategies and free up valued working 

capital. 

A number of economic factors have 

influenced the current market position. 

Pressure exerted on the banks during and 

after the global financial crisis meant they 

were reluctant to lend in the same way as 

they had before. Greater scrutiny and risk 

analysis meant that a generation of UK 

start-ups during and after the recession 

could not use bank financing as a source 

of investment with overdrafts and loans 

drying up. 

Indeed the difficulty in accessing bank 

funds is now more of a perception than 

reality following the recession. Although 

banks are now lending again, they are 

struggling to compete in a new style of 

marketplace where agility, speed and 

efficiency are the key to client attraction, 

acquisition and retention. 

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY 

Perhaps for the first time ever it’s 

becoming a buyer’s market for money. 

With so much choice available and a 

range of financing vehicles to choose 

from, business customers can access 

funding in the way that suits them. Of 

course, as with everything, if something 

seems too good to be true, it probably is. 

Due diligence is not always high on the 

agenda for all new style lenders, and it’s 

vital that both the funder and funded do 

their homework properly before deciding 

who to get into bed with. Securing 



finance needs to be viewed as a longterm 

relationship with whichever funding 

partner is chosen, it’s not a one night 

stand. 

TARGETING THE MARKET 

While banks have traditionally been 

generalist in their lending patterns, 

the alternative funders are choosing 

to specialise and target specific niche 

sectors or markets. This is creating 

specialisms in financing and looks set to 

continue for a good few years to come. 

There is a different lending culture that’s 

being created in the alternative market; 

one where entrepreneurship is valued 

and prized. Funders are looking to build 

partnerships for a future slice of the 

action. They are lending for the future and 

basing their decisions on businesses’ 

potential. Whereas traditional lending 

looked at past performance and made 

lending decisions based on retrospective 

performance and set criteria. 

THE FUTURE OF FINANCE 

The next five to ten years looks set to 

see a dramatic change in the financing 

sector and there are likely to be a number 

of key factors which will have an impact 

for businesses offering finance and their 

clients. 

TECHNOLOGY 

The rise in online and cloud-based 

working has meant the assessment, 

approvals and administration associated 

with finance provision are now faster, 

sharper and more efficient than ever 

before. 

This is the one area that looks set 

to dominate the market in terms of 

innovation in the next few years. Access 

to working capital through user friendly 

online portals and apps will lead to more 

stable cashflow for business owners, 

allowing funds to be accessed on a dip 

in/dip out basis at the touch of a button 

without the need for long term contracts. 

The concept of ‘self-generated funding’ is 

growing and will, in the very near future, 

be the way some businesses choose to 

operate as standard. 

FAST, FUSS FREE FINANCE 

We’re living in a fast paced world 

where, as consumers, we’re now used 

to seeing news and world events in 

real time as they happen, where social 

media allows instant communication 

and updates on friends’ and family 

activities are immediate. For the financial 

services sector, due to regulation and 

compliance requirements, this revolution 

in communications and how we live has 

been slower to take effect. 

However, the alternative funding 

WE UNDERSTAND OUR CLIENTS’ 

ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET 

AND WE CAN ACT AS BUSINESS 

ADVISORS AND EXPERTS IN 

FINANCE – THEIR SUCCESS WILL 

MEAN OUR SUCCESS. 

sector is embracing the client driven need 

to get access to funding without fuss. 

Long-winded application forms, approval 

processes and credit checks are looking 

archaic when it comes to business 

finance. If a busy, ambitious ownermanager 

can access working capital at 

the click of a button why would he/she 

want to fill in a form or sit through an 

interview process for the same end result, 

which ultimately is access to cash? 

I predict that in the next few years 

online, automated applications and 

user-friendly online tools will become 

commonplace. Almost immediate access 

to working capital funds via the internet 

and through mobile apps will create 

more competition between lenders 

who will only succeed if they can keep 

pace with commercial needs alongside 

technological advances. With wearable 

tech on the rise how long will it be until 

we can access business funds through 

finger print technology? 

NEW FINANCIAL MODELS 

Could we see the end of traditional bank 

lending? My prediction is that overdrafts 

will, at some point become defunct. 

Which bank will be the first to be brave 

enough to stop offering overdraft facilities 

altogether? Banks are unlikely to be sorry 

to see the back of overdrafts that are 

proving in many cases to be loss leaders 

for them. 

With easier access to immediate funds 

through what is currently considered 

‘alternative’ it’s only a matter of time 

before cashflow finance, asset finance 

and other ‘newer’ ways of working capital 

funding become the only way to do 

business. Traditional credit facilities will 

be redundant; bank accounts will take 

on a different purpose if all they are is a 

repository for funds to be moved in and 

out. 

The implication for this is that if a bank 

account becomes an electronic vehicle to 

transfer funds it won’t need to seek FCA 

approval. We’re already seeing the first 

wave of completely electronic banking 

such as ATOM bank. 

For traditional banks to compete in 

this fast changing market will require a 

fundamental shift – at the moment it’s 

comparable to a tanker racing a speed 

boat. Global banks are hindered by 

myriad outdated technology systems and 

multi platforms in multi locations that offer 

little or no benefit to its end users – the 

SME business owners and entrepreneurs. 

The new currency for business 

won’t be hard cash, it will be invoices 

– these are the golden ticket to future 

business success. ‘Alternative financing’ 

businesses like ourselves are looking to 

build long-term partnership arrangements 

with clients and offer services above 

and beyond anything the banking sector 

can offer. We understand our clients’ 

entrepreneurial mindset and we can 

act as business advisors and experts 

in finance – their success will mean our 

success so it’s in our interests to make 

sure sound business decisions are made. 

Money is going to be easier to 

access, cheaper and more of it will be 

available from a wider range of lenders. 

This enhanced choice will help mobilise 

British SME businesses that, through the 

recession, have struggled to gain access 

to working capital. It should therefore 

lead to an increase in start-up businesses 

where the funding barrier is removed, 

which in turn should result in faster 

growing companies, more job creation 

and a healthier bottom line for ‘UK plc’ 

than we have seen in recent years. 

We’re entering a market that will be 

driven by stiff competition and greater 

choice that can all be of benefit to SMEs 

– as working capital access becomes 

more automated, it becomes cheaper. 

With the banks still grappling with PPI 

claims, mis-selling scandals and a 

reputation for resistance to lending even 

though it’s not necessarily the reality, it’s 

not hard to envisage a brave new world 

when it comes to finance. I have no 

doubt that, soon, we’ll have discarded our 

‘alternative’ badge – we’ll be the mainstay 

of business financing. We’re certainly here 

to stay. 

Richard Pepler is CEO of HH Cashflow 

Finance. He was founder of Ultimate 

Finance which he took public. He 

also sits on the advisory board of the 

Development Bank for Wales. 



www.cicm.com October 2015 

33

WHAT A 

DEPRESSING 

WASHED OUT 

SUMMER 

Jason Braidwood MCICM(Grad), Head of Credit and 

Collections at Creditsafe Group analyses the latest 

monthly business to business payment performance 

statistics. 

3 4 5 6 7 8 

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 

4 5 6 7 8 

Northern 

Ireland 

21.2 DBT 

Scotland 

19.0 DBT 

Wales 

13.4 DBT 

North West 

18.2 DBT 

West 

Midlands Wales 

16.0 DBT 

South West 

12.9 DBT 

East 

Midlands 

12.2 DBT 

London 

15.8 DBT 

East Anglia 

13.5 DBT 

South East 

15.4 DBT 

FORTUNATELY 25 the worrying trend of joining International Bodies in the ‘Prompter 

last month appears to have flattened Payers’ table this month. 

20 

18.2 17.4 15.7 15.9 16.3 15.7 15.8 

out as we take a look at the August However, 16.2 16.1 

the picture 16 25 

17.3 17.1 

isn’t as rosy 

15 

analysis of Creditsafe’s trade payment elsewhere and once again 20 

18.2 

our old friends 15.7 15.9 16.3 1 

data databases. 10 The encouraging news is in the broader utilities sector 15 are holding up 

25 

that we are still ahead of last year’s figures the league table with continued poor figures 

20 

18.2 5 

17.4 17.3 

15.7 15.9 16.3 15.7 15.8 16.2 16.1 16 17.1 

10 

that saw DBT (Days Beyond Terms) of in Mining and Quarrying, Energy Supply 

15 

0 

5 

more than three weeks Sepin August. Oct Nov However, Dec Jan and Feb Water Mar and Apr Waste. May Jun All three Jul have Aug shown 

10 

you can see that last autumn we had a signs of improvement in the 0month, but 

5 

Sep Oct Nov Dec 

real improvement, so let’s hope that this is all remain above the national average and 

0 

repeated Sep Oct over Nov the Dec next Jan few Feb months. Mar Apr 

Scotland 

May Jun are Jul expecting Aug suppliers to wait sometimes 

The good news is that the improving 19.0 DBT 

over four working weeks beyond terms for 

trend appears to have been repeated invoices to be paid. 

across most industry sectors as well as 

The other interesting sector to note this 

nearly all regions of the UK. While this is month is IT and Communications. One of 

undoubtedly something to cheer, we must last month’s better performers they are the 

never lose sight of the bigger picture, and only industry sector to take a step back this 

that shows that on average across the month, and while they’ve only ended up in 

Northern 

country, and across most Ireland sectors, payment line with the national average it is surprising 

21.2 DBT 

of over two weeks beyond terms remains North West given Yorkshire the & trends elsewhere. They are 

the norm, and that’s disappointing for all 18.2 Humberside 

DBT definitely one to watch next time round. 

12.3 DBT 

East 

of us. 

Midlands 

12.2 Despite all our best efforts as credit REGIONS 

DBT 

East 

professionals, the acceptance of poor Our regional analysis again conforms with 

Midlands 

East Anglia 

payment performance remains something the usual 12.2 trends; DBT London remains the black 

13.5 DBT 

West 

we have to confront. As we always say 

Midlands 

sheep of the South while Scotland and 

East Anglia 

Wales 

Londonthough, information is power and by 

16.0 in DBT particular Northern 13.5 Ireland continue to 

DBT 

13.4 DBT 

15.8 DBT 

analysing the prevailing trends in either post disappointing numbers. The other 

South East 

your sector or region, you can help tailor regular London point of interest is the question 

15.4 DBT 

your terms to help not just manage your of the 15.8 DBT 

Pennine divide; month after month 

South East 

cashflow, but also the expectations of those Yorkshire and Humberside sit in the top one 

South West 

15.4 DBT 

around you. 

12.9 or two regions of the country looking to get 

DBT 

their bills paid promptly, yet at the same 

Health 

time if we look over to the North West the 

picture is reversed with invoices on average 

getting paid a whole week later. In this 

Bottom Five Poorer Payers 

Business Mining & Professional International 

Bottom Five from Home Poorer Quarrying Payers 

Business 

& Scientific Bodies 

& Social 

Mining & Professional International 

INDUSTRY SECTORS 

Health 

Region August 15 Change on July 15 

-14.2 from -12.2 Home Quarrying -10.7 -10.0 & Scientific -6.5 After Bodieseveral months & Social of poor performance, 

Northern Region Ireland 21.2 -2.2 August 15 Change on July 15 

Getting 

Top 

Scotland Better 

Five Prompter -14.2 Payers 

19.0 0.9 -12.2 -10.7 it’s Bottom -10.0 definitely Five encouraging -6.5 Poorer Payers 

Businessto see Mining our army & Professional International Health 

Northern Ireland 21.2 -2.2 

North West 18.2 -2.3 

of small IT and & Comms micro from businesses Home improving 

Quarrying & Scientific particular War Bodies of the Roses & Social there seems to 

West Region Midlands Scotland 16.0 August -3.3 19.0 15 Change 0.9 on July 15 

their 

Region 

payment +2.6 practices. The 

August 

public 

15 

(or 

Change 

at 

on July be 15 

Getting Better -14.2 -12.2 -10.7just one 

-10.0 

clear winner. 

-6.5 

Getting London East North Worse Midlands West 15.8 12.2 -3.8 18.2 -5.7 -2.3 

IT & Comms 

least Northern quasi-public) Ireland sectors also 21.2 appear -2.2 

Yorkshire West Midlands & Humberside 12.3 16.0 -4.1 -3.3 

to Scotland be putting in a stronger performance, +2.6 19.0 0.9 HJason Braidwood MCICM(Grad) Head 

South London West 12.9 15.8 -3.9 -3.8 

Getting with North Worse Public West Administration and 18.2 Education -2.3 of Credit & Collections - Creditsafe Group 

Wales 13.4 -5.2 

West Midlands 16.0 -3.3 

+2.6 

East Anglia 13.5 -1 

London 15.8 -3.8 



Getting Better 

15 

Getting Worse 

Region 

Northern 

Ireland 

21.2 DBT 

Getting Worse 


+0.9 Scotland 

North West -2.3 

Yorkshire & Humberside -4.1 

Scotland 

19.0 DBT 

West Midlands -3.3 

East Midlands -5.7 

East Anglia -1.0 

Wales -5.2 

South West -3.9 

South East -3.2 

London -3.8 

Northern Ireland -2.2 

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 

North West 

18.2 DBT 

Yorkshire & 

Humberside 

12.3 DBT 

13.4 DBT 

Yorkshire & 

Humberside 

12.3 DBT 

West 

Midlands 

16.0 DBT 

South West 

12.9 DBT 

IT & Comms

PAYMENT TRENDS 

76 65 54 43 32 21 10 

0 

0 01 

12 23 34 45 56 67 78 

8 

+0.9 +0.9 Scotland 

9 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 


North North West West -2.3 -2.3 

Yorkshire & Humberside & -4.1 -4.1 

+0.9 Scotland 


West West Midlands -3.3 -3.3 

North West -2.3 

+0.9 Scotland 

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 

7 6 5 4East 3East Midlands 2 Yorkshire 1 0 & Humberside 

-5.7 North -5.7 West 0 1 -2.3 2 3-4.1 

4 5 6 7 8 

6Region 

5 4 3 Yorkshire 2 East 1 Anglia 0 

West 

& Humberside -1.0 0 1Midlands -4.1 2 3 -3.3 

25 

East Anglia -1.0 

4 5 6 7 8 

Region 

25 

20 

Wales West 

Getting 

Midlands 

East Better Midlands 

-5.2 -3.3 

-5.7 UK DBT Trend 

Wales -5.2 

15 

20 


Region 

25 

+0.9 

South West 

East Scotland Midlands East Anglia 

-3.9 

-5.7 -1.0 UK DBT Trend 

10 15 

South West 20 

+0.9 -3.9 

Getting Scotland Better 

25 

5 10 

North West East -2.3Anglia -1.0 Wales -5.2 

15 

South South East East -3.2 

25 

0 

+0.9 -3.2 

5 

North West Scotland -2.3 

10 

Yorkshire & Humberside -4.1 Wales -5.2 

20 

18.2 

South West -3.9 20 

18.2 17.4 17.3 

15.7 15.915.7 16.3 15.9 15.7 15.816.3 16.2 15.7 16.1 1615.8 0 

17.1 

London -3.8 

5 

16.2 16.1 

Yorkshire & 

Scotland 

North Humberside London 

West 

-3.8 

South -2.3 -4.1 

West -3.9 

15 

19.0 DBT 

West Midlands -3.3 South East -3.2 15 

Scotland 

0 

Northern Ireland Ireland -2.2 -2.2 

Yorkshire & South East -3.2 

10 

19.0 DBT 

West 

East 

Humberside Midlands 

Midlands -5.7 

-4.1 -3.3 London -3.8 

10 

Scotland 

Getting Getting Worse Worse 

5 

London -3.8 

19.0 DBT 

West East 

East Midlands 

Anglia -1.0 Northern -3.3 -5.7 Ireland -2.2 

0 

East Midlands Northern Ireland -2.2 

5 

East Anglia Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug 

Wales -5.2 -5.7 -1.0 Getting Worse 

Northern 

Scotland 

Getting Worse 

Ireland 

South East Anglia 

19.0 West 

Wales 

-3.9 -1.0 -5.2 Sector 0 

21.2 DBTNorthern 

DBT 

North West Yorkshire & 

Ireland Sep Oct Nov 

18.2 Humberside 

Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr 

DBT 

South South Wales East West -3.2 -5.2 -3.9 

21.2 DBT 

Sector 

North West 12.3 DBTYorkshire & 

Northern 

Humberside 

Sector 

18.2 DBT 

Ireland 

Scotland 

South South London West East -3.8 -3.9 -3.2 

19.0 DBT 

Northern South Ireland London East -2.2 -3.2 -3.8 

Health 

Northern Getting London Ireland Worse -3.8 -2.2 

& Social 

-6.5 

Getting Worse 

Northern Ireland -2.2 

Northern 

Ireland 

21.2 DBT 

9 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 

North West 

18.2 DBT 

Getting Worse 

Getting Getting Better Better 

Yorkshire & 

Humberside 

12.3 DBT 

18.2 

15.7 15.9 16.3 15.7 15 

18.2 

15.7 15.9 16.3 

Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan F 

East 

South East 

Midlands 

Top Five Prompter Payers 

12.2 DBTop Bottom Five Five Poorer Payers Payers 

South West 

15.4 DBT 

Top Five Prompter Payers Business Mining & Professional 

West 

12.9 Bottom Bottom International Five Five Poorer Poorer Health Payers Payers 

DBT 

from Home Quarrying & Scientific Bodies 

& Social 

Region Midlands 

Top Five Prompter Payers August 15 Change on July 15Sector Sector East Region Anglia 

Wales 

Top Five Prompter 

August August 

Payers 

15 15 Change Change on July on 15 July 15 Sector 

Bottom Five Poorer Payers 

August 15 Change on July 15 

16.0 


Bottom Five August 15 Change on July 15 

Sector August 15 Change on July 15 

Top -14.2 Poorer Five Payers 

Business Prompter -12.2Mining Payers &-10.7 

Professional -10.0International 

-6.5 Bottom Health Five Poorer Payers 

DBT 

East Midlands 12.2 -5.7 International International Northern 13.5 Bodies DBT Bodies Ireland 5.9 5.9 -10.0 

Mining & Quarrying 22.9 -12.2 

13.4 DBT 

Sector from Home 21.2 -10.0 -2.2 

August 15 Quarrying Change on July 15 & Mining Scientific& Quarrying 

Sector Bodies 22.9 & Social -12.2 

August 15 Change on July 15 

Yorkshire & North Humberside West 12.3 Yorkshire -4.1& 

Business Business from Scotland from Home Home Sector 6.2 6.2 19.0 -14.2 -14.2 0.9 August 15 Energy Change Energy Supply on July Supply 15 

Sector 22.7 22.7 -2.6 -2.6 August 15 



International Bodies 5.9 -10.0 

Mining & Quarrying 22.9 -12.2 

South West 12.9 -3.9 

Getting 

London Getting Public North Worse Bottom West 

Better 

Humberside Public Administration Five International Poorer -14.2 

11.8 11.8 Payers 18.2 Bodies -12.2 

-6.0-2.3 

Business Admin & Support 20.6 IT & Comms -2.4 

Business from Home Business -6.0 

5.9 -10.7 

6.2 Mining -14.2 & Professional Business -10.0 -10.0 

Admin 

Energy International & Support Mining -6.5 

Supply Health 20.6 & Quarrying -2.4 22.9 

East Midlands 

18.2 

12.2 -5.7 

Northern Ireland 21.2 -2.2 

DBT 

22.7 -2.6 

Wales 13.4 -5.2 15.8 Education Education West Midlands Business from 

DBT 

Public Administration 11.9 11.9 from Home 16.0 Home -5.4 11.8 -5.4 Quarrying -3.3 6.2 

-6.0 & Scientific Water -14.2 Water & Waste Business & Waste Bodies Energy 

Admin & Support & 18.6 Social Supply 18.6 20.6 +2.6-0.8-2.4 

-0.8 22.7 

Yorkshire & Humberside 12.3 

Region East Anglia 13.5 August -4.1 

Scotland 19.0 0.9 

15 DBT 

-1Change on July Entertainment 15 

South London Region Public 

EastEducation 12.115.8 August 

11.9 -3.015-3.8 

Change on July 15 

Better 

12.1 Administration 

-14.2 -3.0 

11.8 

-12.2 -5.4 -10.7 Transportation -6.0 


Water -10.0 

& Waste Storage & Storage Business 

-6.5 18.1 Admin 18.1 & 

18.6 -2.5 Support 

-0.8 -2.5 20.6 

Getting North WorseWest 18.2 -2.3 

IT & Comms 

East 

Wales 

Midlands 12.2 

13.4 

-5.7 

South West-5.2 

15.4 Northern 

DBTWest Entertainment Midlands 

Ireland Education 

12.1 21.2 

16.0 -3.0-2.2 

11.9 -5.4 

Water & Waste 18.6 

-3.3 

Transportation & Storage 18.1 -2.5 

Yorkshire 

East Anglia 

& Humberside 12.3 

13.512.9 -4.1 

Scotland Entertainment 19.0 0.9 12.1 -3.0 

Transportation & Storage +2.6 18.1 

DBT -1 

London 15.8 -3.8 


Getting North WorseWest 18.2 -2.3 

IT & Comms 


www.cicm.com October 2015 

Wales 13.4 -5.2 East 

West Midlands 16.0 -3.3 

35 

+2.6 

East Anglia 13.5 Midlands 

-1 

London 15.8 -3.8 

Top Five Prompter Payers 

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 

South West 

12.9 DBT 

London 

15.8 DBT 

18.2 

15.7 15.9 16.3 



12.3 DBT 

21.2 DBT 

East 

Business Business Mining Mining & North & Professional 

WestProfessional 

Yorkshire 

Midlands International 

& International Health Health 

from Home from Home 

Humberside 

Quarrying Quarrying18.2 & Scientific 

DBT & Scientific 12.2 Bodies Bodies & Social & Social 

DBT 

West 12.3 DBT 

East 

Getting Getting Better Better -14.2 -14.2 -12.2 -12.2 Midlands -10.7 -10.7 -10.0 

Midlands 

Business 

-10.0 -6.5 -6.5 

Mining East Anglia 

Wales 

Business Mining 16.0 

12.2 

& Professional International 

DBT 

from Home & 

DBT 

West Professional Quarrying 13.5 International 

DBT& Scientific HealthBodies 

from Home 13.4 DBT 

Quarrying & Scientific East 

Midlands 

Bodies 

& Social 


Midlands East Anglia 

Getting Getting Worse Worse 

Wales -14.2 

Getting Better -14.2 

-12.2 -10.7 -10.0 

-12.2 16.0 DBT 

London -10.7 -10.0 -6.5 IT & Comms IT & Comms 

12.2 DBT 

13.5 DBT 

13.4 DBT 

West 15.8 DBT 

+2.6 +2.6 

Midlands South East 

Getting Worse 

East Anglia 

Wales 

London 

Getting Worse 

South West 16.0 DBT 15.4 DBT 

13.5 IT & Comms 

DBT 

13.4 15.8 DBT 

DBT 

12.9 DBT 

South East 

+2.6 

15.4 DBT 

IT

MONTHLY ROUND-UP OF THE LATEST STORIES 

IN GLOBAL TRADE BY ANDREA KIRKBY. 

NO BULLS LEFT IN THE CHINA SHOP 

I WONDER 

WHETHER THE 

DEVALUATION 

MEANS CHINA'S 

HAVING A HARDER 

LANDING THAN 

THE GOVERNMENT 

HAS BEEN WILLING 

TO ADMIT. 

CHINA has gone from bad to worse 

over the last couple of months. The 

first slide in the market saw some 

investors taking advantage of price 

drops to grab cheap stocks – this time, the 

bulls seem to have disappeared. 

In a major change from previous policy, 

the Chinese government has devalued 

the yuan, becoming a new major player in 

the softer-than-thou currency wars (Japan 

and Switzerland already having joined the 

soft side). The yuan was dollar pegged, 

and China must have feared the effects of 

a Fed rate rise on its own currency – but 

this wasn't the only problem. The yuan 

had appreciated against other emerging 

market currencies, damaging China's 

competitiveness. Devaluing, China hopes, 

will help create a new export boom. 

I wonder whether the devaluation means 

China's having a harder landing than the 

Government has been willing to admit. 

August saw the factory sector shrinking, 

with output at a four-year low, and domestic 

as well as export orders falling. Add that to 

property and stock market woes and it's 

difficult to see where the second half growth 

the Government is talking about will come 

from. Worse still, the Chinese situation is 

rippling out to all the other Asian markets, 

and it's also had an effect on the copper 

price and other commodities prices as 

traders envisage a fall in Chinese demand. 

One City economist has even warned that 

developed economies could see ‘a tidal 

wave of deflation’ as newly cheap Chinese 

imports flood into their markets. 

That means exporters will have to keep 

an eye on how their products stack up 

against Chinese produced competition – as 

well as on the currencies they're getting 

paid in. 

I'M always wary when an estate agent 

tells me house prices won't crash, or a 

stockbroker tells me the markets will keep 

going up, because ‘it's different this time.’ 

Boom and bust is never different and 

gravity has its way in the end. 

But some things do change, and a 

warning from the Overseas Development 

Institute (ODI) shook up my rather cosy view 

of emerging markets. 

In 2007, many emerging countries 

looked much more stable than the US or 

Europe, with low government debt, high 

foreign reserves, and decent economic 

growth. But it's different now – at least for 

IT'S DIFFERENT THIS TIME ROUND – HONEST! 

some. Years of cheap interest rates have 

encouraged governments to load up on 

debt, with the result that some developing 

countries – particularly in Africa – are 

looking exposed. Worse, since many are 

commodity-focused, falling Chinese growth 

and its knock-on impact on commodities 

represent a major threat. 

Some countries, like Tanzania, have 

achieved major objectives in reducing child 

mortality and increasing levels of education 

– but at the cost of high borrowing. Now 

gold and precious metals prices have 

fallen, the country is finding its debts more 

difficult to service. Ghana, on the other 

hand, seems to have used its increased 

borrowings mainly to fund pork-barrel 

politics – and it too is finding the economic 

wind against it. 

Other countries the ODI singles out as 

at risk include mining-driven Mongolia, 

Ethiopia, Mauritania, Senegal, Laos, 

Uganda and the tiny kingdom of Bhutan. 

Bhutan prides itself on alternative, 

Buddhist economics of ‘Gross National 

Happiness’ – but needs to be careful not 

to fund its happiness through future misery. 

If you export to any of these countries, 

make sure you keep a close eye on what's 

in the air – there could be storms coming. 



INTERNATIONAL TRADE 

THE PHONEY WAR CONTINUES 

BOTH the Fed and the Bank of England 

are making noises about raising interest 

rates, but neither has yet taken any action. 

(Memorably, one MP called Governor, Mark 

Carney, out for behaving like ‘an unreliable 

boyfriend’.) 

But in the real world, interest rates 

do seem to be on the rise. In the UK, 

MoneySupermarket said the 60 percent LTV 

mortgage rate it tracks had risen from 2.09 

percent to 2.23 percent in just a couple of 

weeks, while new launches of easy access 

accounts showed banks giving depositors 

ROMANIAN OPPORTUNITY 

THERE are relatively few bright spots in 

Europe, but Romania looks like one. A 

recent Credendo Group study singled the 

country out for robust growth and low 

inflation. Add to this a rebound in lending 

to corporates, which should stimulate 

investment, together with a low government 

deficit and good foreign exchange reserves, 

and the country looks attractive compared 

to most of its peers. 

The crisis hit Romania hard, but it's now 

recovering, and the EU has been a real 

lifeline – it's completely reversed its trade 

patterns from COMECON days, with very 

little now going to Russia and a massive 70 

percent of its exports to other EU countries. 

Top exports from Britain include 

transport equipment, machinery, parts, 

textiles, and chemicals, but additionally 

there's a huge opportunity for exporters 

supplying the energy sector. Romania 

aims to provide 24 percent of its energy 

from renewable sources by 2020, with big 

projects requiring consultancy, project 

management, and construction, as well 

as parts and equipment. At the same 

time, ports, airports, and railways as well 

as waste and sewage management are 

attracting investment – big chances for 

exporters to get in on the act. 

HIGH LOW TREND 

GBP/EUR 1.4215 1.3523 Down 

GBP/USD 1.5802 1.5164 Down 

GBP/CHF 1.5402 1.4668 Down 

GBP/AUD 2.2088 2.0893 Up 

GBP/CAD 2.0062 2.0951 Down 

GBP/JPY 195.2011 180.3820 Down 

more generous rates than before. In the 

US, corporate bond yields have risen 

since April, particularly in high yield (where 

investors have taken a haircut as prices 

consequently fell). Spreads between 

high yield and treasuries are widening 

too – usually a warning that investors are 

expecting lower growth or worsening risks 

ahead. 

Any rise in rates will put pressure on 

indebted corporates, so make sure you 

check your customers' balance sheets and 

work out just how vulnerable they might be. 

FOREIGN EXCHANGE SPECIALISTS 

FOR THE LATEST 

EXCHANGE RATES VISIT 

CURRENCYUK.CO.UK OR 

CALL 020 7738 0777 

Currency UK is authorised and regulated 

by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). 

NEWS IN IN BRIEF 

TRIPLE CROWN 

NASCO has just won its third 

consecutive Queen's Award for exporting 

branded consumer goods. It's done 

superbly with brands from Redbull to 

Domestos and from Bird's Custard to 

Twining's Tea, in Africa, the Middle East 

and India – customer countries include 

Algeria, Bangladesh and Tanzania, but 

also Italy and Sweden. 

Key to Nasco's success is getting the 

boring stuff right. Nasco labels products 

in different languages for its various 

export markets, and has its own date 

coding equipment to ensure products 

meet different regulations for each 

country. Warehouse and other staff are 

trained to understand the requirements 

of each market. That's allowed the 

company to triple overseas sales in three 

years. 

Nasco is also a big believer in using 

the internet – particularly when it comes 

to using internet phone and video to 

cut down on phone bills and expensive, 

time-consuming travel. Well done Nasco. 

Let's see if the company can make it four 

awards next year! 

PUMPED UP 

BRITISH exporters are really good at 

pumping. MasoSine, part of the Watson- 

Marlow Flouid Technology Group, has 

pumps that can handle peanut butter, 

coronation chicken or coleslaw without 

clogging up or breaking the ingredients. 

It’s just won a big export order to South 

Africa. 

Meanwhile Landia, which sells 

chopper pumps that chop up rags, wet 

wipes and other debris before it clogs 

the pump up, has won a contract for 

wastewater management in the Grand 

Canyon. 

Both companies have clearly 

identified market niches and technical 

strengths – and that’s the key to their 

export success. 

P.S. 

OH yes. The Greek story rumbles on 

and on. The latest development is 

a snap election called by PM Alexis 

Tsipras. Unusually, he’ll be competing 

for votes against a significant breakaway 

faction of his own party. This one will run 

and run. Don’t take your eyes off 

the euro till it’s all over! And not even 

then. 



OPINION 

A GOLDEN PYRRHIC 

VICTORY 

The renunciation of a contract may be accepted, but it can result in unforeseen 

consequences. Peter Walker looks at a recent case decided in the Supreme Court, which 

considered the validity of an arbitration award worth over $3 million. 

IN 2010 a drought affecting the Russian 

wheat harvest started a commercial 

dispute that was resolved by the 

Supreme Court this year, ironically a 

year when a good harvest is expected. 

The Russian authorities reacted to the 

poor harvest by imposing a three-month 

embargo on grain exports. One wheat 

seller responded by serving notice to 

cancel a contract for the sale of 20,000 

metric tonnes of wheat FOB Novorossiysk. 

Embargos and cancelled contracts are not 

good for business, and the Supreme Court 

judges eventually had to find out what went 

wrong in the case Bunge SA v Nidera BV 

[2015] UKSC 43. 

The embargo ran from 15 August 2010 

to the end of the year. The buyers treated 

the sellers’ cancellation as a repudiation, 

which they accepted. The sellers much later 

offered to reinstate the contract, but the 

buyers did not agree, and started arbitration 

proceedings. 

This arbitration was subject to the 

rules of the Grain and Food Trade 

Association (GAFTA), with the contract 

itself incorporating GAFTA Form 49 relating 

to free on board (FOB) terms for goods 

in bulk or bags delivered from Central or 

Eastern Europe. FOB are important letters 

regarding payment for goods because they 

indicate that the seller delivers them once 

they pass the ship’s rail at the named port 

of shipment. 

Because of the embargo there was 

no shipment, so clause 13 of those rules 

applied: where there was an embargo 

or similar action by a state, and such a 

measure affected a contract, the restrictions 

applied to the agreement, or if it had been 

partially executed, to the remainder. 

There was another rule, clause 20, 

concerning a ‘default of fulfilment’ of the 

contract by either party. The party not in 

default could serve notice on the defaulter, 

and have the right to sell or purchase 

against that defaulter. The price obtained 

would be the default price, and this could 

be used to determine the amount of 

damages payable. 

ANTICIPATORY BREACH OF CONTRACT 

The buyers in Bunge v Nidera wanted 

damages, a little over $3 million – the 

difference between the market and contract 

price at the time the repudiation was 

accepted. The dispute was referred to 

arbitration, where the arbitrator awarded 

that sum, meaning the judges of the 

Supreme Court had to consider the effects 

of an anticipatory breach of contract. 

In that respect they looked at some old 

judicial decisions, such as the judgment in 

Hochster v De la Tour (1853) 2 E & B 678. 

Edgar de la Tour agreed to employ Albert 

Hochster as a European courier for three 

months, but about three weeks before 

he was due to start work, Mr de la Tour 

had changed his mind. Eleven days later 

Mr Hochster commenced litigation, also 

before the time he was to become Mr de la 

Tour’s courier. He fortunately found similar 

employment, with Lord Ashburton, albeit 

at a later starting date, but he nonetheless 

succeeded in his case, with Lord Campbell 

commenting: ‘The renunciation may be 

treated as a breach of the contract.’ 

DAMAGES 

The result of such a breach would be an 

award of compensatory damages, but they 

are difficult to quantify. An important case 

to guide, or hinder, this task was Golden 

Strait Corporation v Nippon Yusen Kubishka 



FEATURE 

SPECIAL 

Kaisha (2007) 2 AC 353 (the Golden Victory 

case). In this case the Law Lords noted that 

a Liberian company chartered the tanker 

Golden Victory from a Japanese company. 

Those charterers sailed the ship for 

over three years, nearly half the agreed 

period, but in 2001 repudiated the contract 

by returning the Golden Victory to the 

owner. The Liberian company accepted 

the repudiation, but wanted damages as 

compensation, since the charterers should 

have returned the vessel in December 2005. 

Between then and the prior date of 

repudiation the second Gulf War occurred, 

posing a problem since Clause 31 of 

the original agreement allowed either 

party to cancel the charterparty should 

there be hostilities involving specified 

countries, such as the USA, UK and Iraq. 

The charterers suggested that this event, 

not anticipated at the date of repudiation, 

should reduce any damages payable. 

The owners of the Golden Victory 

wanted those damages to be calculated 

over the whole of the remaining period 

notwithstanding subsequent events, i.e. 

the second Gulf War, which had broken out 

some 15months after the repudiation of 

the charterparty. The charterers had later 

offered to take the vessel back on the same 

contractual terms, but the owner rejected 

that offer. At one of the arbitrations arising 

from these events the arbitrator ruled that 

by this rejection the owners had not failed 

to mitigate their loss. 

The calculation of any damages in any 

event would be difficult, particularly since 

the charterer had agreed to pay a minimum 

guaranteed rate, which would have 

increased over the period of the charter, 

and It would pay the owner a share of the 

operating profits above the base charter 

rate. Whatever the difficulty the Law Lords 

had to decide whether the outbreak of 

war in the circumstances placed a limit on 

the period for the calculation of damages. 

That compensation alternatively would 

be calculated on the basis of the whole 

contract period. 

There were plenty of conflicting opinions, 

and the final judgment was the result of a 

majority of the Law Lords. To guide them 

there were many decisions to the effect 

that damages should be assessed at 

the date of the breach of contract. Lord 

Carswell referred to several cases and also 

to Chitty on Contracts, writing: ‘The loss is 

ordinarily assessed over the remainder of 

the contract.’ 

Lord Carswell referred instead to 

the decision in Bwllfa and Merthyr Dare 

Steam Collieries (1891) Ltd v Pontypridd 

Waterworks Co [1903] AC 426. The 

defendant exercised its statutory powers in 

order to prevent a colliery company 

from working a seam of coal and an 

arbitration took place about statutory 

compensation. If it was on the basis of 

the date on which the notice was served, 

the value was low; if account was to be 

taken of the period during which the coal 

was subsequently to be mined, the value 

would have been higher. This latter value 

was known by the time the arbitration 

took place, and the Law Lords decided it 

should not be disregarded, since it was an 

accomplished fact. 

CONTROVERSIAL GOLDEN VICTORY 

In the Golden Victory case the majority 

of the judges of the Supreme Court 

were prepared to take into account the 

accomplished fact of the second Gulf 

War. They noted the arbitrator’s view 

that, at the time of the repudiation of the 

contract, a reasonable person would 

have considered such a war as ‘merely a 

possibility’. Lord Brown added that when 

damages came to be assessed, unless 

there was a contractual condition bringing 

the agreement immediately to an end on the 

repudiation date, subsequent events should 

be taken into account. The owners’ claim 

would be limited to the date on which the 

Gulf War began. 

This was a controversial decision, as 

indicated by the dissenting minority in the 

House of Lords, and in the Law Quarterly 

Review G H Treitel wrote: ‘The Golden 

Victory gives rise to the difficulty that 

it provides no clear reasons why more 

weight was not given to “the importance 

of certainty in commercial transactions” 

…’ (LQR [2007] at p 17). Michael Mustill 

later reflected that he arrived ‘at the same 

conclusion as the minority’ of the Law Lords 

(LQR [2008] at p 585). 

In Bunge v Nidera the Supreme Court 

judges noted these criticisms, but agreed 

with the decision in the Golden Victory 

case. One deciding factor was that if the 

contract had continued, the seller would 

have had a legitimate reason to cancel the 

contract without liability because of the 

continuation of the export ban. 

This would have been in accordance 

with the default clause in GAFTA Form 49, 

but there had been an award of $3 million. 

The judges of the Supreme Court pointed 

out instead that no one had actually lost 

anything, so they read the documents 

carefully. Lord Sumption concluded that 

the default clause detailed nothing more 

than how to determine the market price or 

value of the goods to be compared with the 

contract price. 

It fatally did not concern itself with 

subsequent events, and certainly did not 

preclude the common law. One principle, 

according to Lord Toulson, was ‘restitutio in 

integrum’, i.e. an injured party is ‘so far as 

money can do it to be placed in the same 

situation with respect to damages as if the 

contract had been performed’ (Robinson v 

Harman (1848) 1 Exch 850). No one had 

lost anything, so the award of $3 million 

was reduced to a mere $5. A paltry sum in 

comparison with the costs of the arbitration 

and subsequent litigation. 

Beware if you want to challenge the 

repudiation of your contract! The results can 

be more uncertain than expected, and there 

may no golden victory, just an expensive 

pyrrhic one. 



OPINION 

THE DRAGON 

SLAYER 

Derek ‘the dragon slayer' Scott FCICM, takes us back to 

when he fought off bad payment terms in a manner similar 

to when George slayed the dragon...well, sort of. 

THE clearance of the old debts has 

been central to my role, and since 

there was no purpose in clearing 

previous debts if new ones were 

being created it was important to ensure 

cash collection, in relation to current 

accounts, continued at a canter – and to 

that effect we ensured our systems were 

kept current. 

Staff training was key to this. While we 

had some extremely qualified collectors, 

few had ever experienced the kind of 

all-embracing PR that was required, and 

they were tasked with building up personal 

profiles on everyone in the payment chain – 

from principles and surveyors, to engineers 

and project managers, as well as the actual 

company payers. 

I consistently stressed to employees 

the essential nature of knowing exactly 

what made the clients tick, and playing 

the clients right was integral, particularly 

since we had quite a varied client selection, 

from Pigeon financiers, rowers, caravan 

enthusiasts to various sports players or 

supporters. We needed to know those who 

enjoyed a little humour, and those who were 

always strenuous, and what the key time to 

contact them was. Personal contact was 

always king. 

CREDIT LUNATIC 

In my early working days, our main 

paperwork was akin to a cigarette packet, 

though I did manage to ensure this 

improved later. We eventually managed to 

change our payment terms, though in reality 

there was no easy way to alter custom and 

practice developed over many years, so 

I had to accept the start of the payment 

target was 30 days from the end of the 

month in which an invoice was generated. 

Though one situation that did need 

confronting was our 60 and 90-day 

payment customers, who had not only 

made payments over the years on this basis 

(though usually longer), but also had our 

most desirable discounts. 

Contract and hire staff from these latepayment 

customers claimed they would 

cease trading with us immediately if this 

new ‘credit lunatic’ (me) started messing 

with their payment terms, however this 

proved not the be the case as a customer 

survey I undertook for my post-graduate 

diploma showed the main keys to trading 

with us were process, service, and, 

strangely, trustworthy employees. 

BEER AND BONUS 

I went to see all the major 90-day-payers, 

and negotiated with them on the basis 

of what I called ‘nought-to-ninety’, a 

process which in most cases resulted in 

new payment terms of 45-days, and this 

included a retrospective discount that only 

became applicable if an account was paid 

to terms. 

Furthermore, there were to be some 

individually tailored payment agreements, 

but these were kept for special situations, 

and would not exceed 55 days beyond 

terms with cheque collection. And I put an 

end to the practice of automatic discount 

hand-outs on missing or damaged material 

invoices, as customers took these as the 

norm and always expected more. These 

invoices would now all be at best prices. 

Incentivisation was also included as 

part of my new collections model, and the 

collectors were put on a bonus scheme, 

with special competitions on top of that, 

and every time we achieved a new cash 

collection record we held an evening for all 

staff at the local. This could be quite costly 

to the company, for some of our employees 

could drink just as fast as they collected 

money! 

FLAG IT UP 

I set up monitoring systems on the 

Due diligence list, Core Accounts, and 

Retentions, and there would also be a query 

flagging system. The first of these, the Due 

diligence list, was made up purely of cash 

paying customers and was simplistic in 

respect of Sale and Contract work, though 

Hire was more difficult in view of the value 

of equipment, and the dangers of loss or 

damage. 

The Core Accounts were a group of 

known slow paying customers, and very 

much experts in deploying delaying tactics 

such as asking many questions, though we 

tried to lower the risk with our relationship 

with other people in the payment chain. 

This was particularly important at our 

fixed location clients, such as refineries 

and power stations, as we had to take 

on a generally higher risk of business to 

avoid any competition coming on-site. 

We therefore know the chief buyers, 

station superintendents, maintenance 

managers and engineers on a personal 

level. There would also be tailored payment 

agreements, cheque collections, and at 

times special guarantees. By doing so, we 



FEATURE 

SPECIAL 

AS A COLLECTOR, YOU HAVE TO THINK 

LIKE A POKER PLAYER, NEVER SHOWING 

ALL YOUR WINNING CARDS TOO EARLY. 

were able to undertake substantial business 

that might have not normally been the case. 

Normally Retentions customers stayed 

on for six to 12 months, but unless we 

followed up on them the payment seemed 

not to appear! I also made a suggestion to 

the company that we should offer a small 

additional percentage in relation to the 

contractors discount if no retention was 

deducted. Our argument was that if in one 

year the building falls down, it is hardly the 

fault of the scaffolding! 

All in all, the retention balance went 

down by over half within a year 

YOU HAVE TO BARK 

I was very fortunate to inherit an excellent 

UK firm of solicitors though they had of 

course not been used in a way that ensured 

we had the full benefit of its service. And 

I am amazed by the number of credit 

managers I have met over the years who 

seem to believe in the old saying ‘if you 

keep a dog do not bark yourself.’ 

I make no apologies for my belief and 

whilst I am happy to take advice on all 

aspects of the law, I want to make the 

decisions in relation to the road I wish to 

pursue. One key action I found useful was 

the issue of a solicitor’s letter where there 

was a dispute, and the other side would not 

come to the table, resulting almost every 

time in a ‘without prejudice’ meeting with or 

without solicitors present. 

Clearly I am not a mediator, and my job 

was to obtain the best possible settlement 

for the company taking into account any 

consequences in relation to future business. 

Solicitor’s letters had delivered excellent 

results in the past, but they had also 

resulted in us losing a substantial amount 

of work, causing irreparable fractures in 

relationships. It is factors like this that make 

mediation through independent sources 

far from beneficial. Often I would have to 

dig the company out of a hole, particularly 

when during discussions facts would come 

to light that had never been preciously 

mentioned to me. This was despite my best 

approach to staff requesting all the facts 

beforehand and reviewing every piece of 

documentation. 

NEVER MIND THE CHARGES 

The key queries were always contract overruns, 

variations, missing material, contra 

claims, and they could be exceptionally 

complicated, and never just about the actual 

charges shown as outstanding. The customer 

will question whether a variation on extra was 

valid, or should have been part of the original 

contract. As a collector, you have to think like 

a poker player, never showing all your winning 

cards too early. I did eventually become quite 

good, or should that be devious, at obtaining 

more than reasonable results. Although never 

too smug, as there is always someone out 

there better than you. 

Derek Scott FCICM 



HR ROUNDUP 

SOCIAL MEDIA – BE CAREFUL 

WHAT YOU POST 

Gareth Edwards looks at cases of inappropriate social media posts, agency workers 

and job ads and illegal workers. 

CAN derogatory comments about an 

employer on Facebook be fair? Can it lead 

to dismissal? 

In British Waterways Board v Smith, 

Mr Smith was employed by the British 

Waterways Board (BWB). As part of his 

job, Smith was on standby for one week 

in every five. BWB prohibited employees 

drinking alcohol when they were on 

standby. It also had a social media policy 

that prohibited ‘any action on the internet 

which might embarrass or discredit 

BWB’. 

During the investigation of a grievance 

raised by Smith, his manager supplied 

HR with pages from Smith’s Facebook 

account that included derogatory 

comments about his supervisors. On 

receipt, the HR team investigated and 

identified evidence that suggested Smith 

was drunk whilst on standby. A disciplinary 

investigation subsequently took place and 

found more of the same. 

Smith's manager was aware of some of 

the comments and had previously raised 

them. HR had not investigated at the 

time because they were ‘too busy’. Smith 

accepted that he made the comments but 

said that they were just 'banter' and he 

had not been drinking. He also contended 

that his Facebook account had been 

hacked. 

At a subsequent disciplinary hearing 

the decision-maker concluded that the 

comments had the potential to undermine 

confidence in Smith's ability to react in 

an emergency. It was also decided that 

Smith's actions were a clear breach 

of BWB’s policies and he was summarily 

dismissed for gross misconduct. 

Smith brought a claim for unfair dismissal 

to the Employment Tribunal (ET). 

The ET found that although the process 

BWB followed was fair, the decision to 

dismiss Smith was not within the band of 

responses that a reasonable employer would 

take. In particular the ET found that BWB 

failed to consider Smith’s points of mitigation. 

Overturning this decision on appeal, 

the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) found 

that as the ET accepted that a fair procedure 

had been followed, it must have concluded 

that BWB had considered Smith's points 

of mitigation. That being so, the ET had 

improperly substituted its own views for that 

of the employer. It held that the decision to 

dismiss was fair. 



AGENCY WORKERS AND PERMANENT VACANCIES 

DO agency workers have the right to be 

considered for any permanent vacancy 

on an equal footing with permanent 

employees at risk of redundancy? Coles v 

Ministry of Defence thought not. 

Mr Coles was an agency worker 

assigned to a Ministry of Defence (MoD) 

organisation. In 2013, the MoD went 

through a restructuring that resulted 

in 530 employees being placed into a 

redeployment pool. These permanent 

employees were to be given priority 

consideration for any permanent vacancies 

at their existing grade. 

A permanent position became 

available in respect of the work already 

being performed by Coles. The job was 

advertised internally, which Coles would 

have been able to see, but he did not 

look at the advert and did not apply. An 

employee from the redeployment pool 

did apply and was successful. As a 

consequence of this position being filled, 

the MoD no longer needed Coles so 

gave him notice. Coles brought a claim 

in the Employment Tribunal (ET), arguing 

that the MoD had failed to comply with 

its obligation under the Agency Workers 

Regulations to provide details of the vacant 

post which denied him the opportunity to 

apply for it. 

The ET dismissed the claim, holding 

that under the regulations Coles was 

only entitled to be informed about the job 

vacancy and this did not include a right to 

be considered equally with any permanent 

employees. 

EATdismissed the appeal finding that 

UK and EU legislation on this point is 

clearly limited to agency workers' right to 

be informed of any permanent vacancies. 

While the regulations provide 

agency workers with the same rights as 

comparable permanent employees in 

erms of hours and pay, the legislation 

cannot be interpreted as giving agency 

workers the same status as permanent 

staff. 

IN BRIEF ... 

CRACKDOWN ON 

ILLEGAL WORKERS 

IN August 2015, the Government 

announced a crackdown on businesses 

that employ illegal workers. The new 

drive to end illegal working does not 

bring any new legislation into force but 

instead relies on increased enforcement 

of existing laws. 

Employers have a responsibility to 

prevent illegal working in the UK by 

ensuring that their employees have the 

right to work in the UK. If the employer is 

found to be employing an illegal worker 

they can be liable to pay a civil penalty 

of up to £20,000 per illegal worker. Or if 

an employer has knowingly employed an 

illegal worker, which is a criminal offence, 

it can be punished by up to two years 

imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine. 

Regulations provide agency workers with the same rights as comparable 

permanent employees in terms of hours and pay, the legislation cannot be 

interpreted as giving agency workers the same status as permanent staff. 



EDUCATION 

CICM IS THE RECOGNISED STANDARD IN CREDIT MANAGEMENT 

IS YOUR 

TRAINING 

GOOD ENOUGH? 

THE recent granting of a Royal Charter 

confirms the unique role of credit 

management to the economy and 

the vital role of credit and collections 

professionals to organisations. Credit 

management adds value across the entire 

business cycle, not least in ensuring that 

cashflow is protected and maintained. 

Credit management intelligence feeds 

directly into finance, giving companies the 

ability to forecast cashflow accurately and 

identify investment opportunities. Collectors 

are key to building commercial relationships 

and ensuring consumers are treated fairly 

and organisations remain compliant, which 

invites the question, is your training good 

enough? 

CICM plans to run a series of articles 

over coming months which include case 

studies to show how organisations have 

adapted their training in recent years 

to meet the new challenges for credit 

management and collections learners. 

The Institute has also planned a range of 

initiatives to encourage organisations to 

invest in robust training (see pages 45 and 

46 for further details). Start with the survey 

below to assess the quality of your training. 

1. Which best describes your induction 

training? 

A. Mainly on-the-job by learning from a 

more experienced colleague. 

B. A combination of credit/collections 

specific and organisational training. 

C. Extensive training, including a period 

of close supervision until threshold 

competency is reached. 

2. Which best describes your ongoing 

training? 

A. Periodic update by the manager. 

B. Feedback in monthly one-to-ones and 

occasional training on a needs basis. 

C. Regular training which includes 

access to qualification courses and 

engagement with external credit and 

collections communities. 

3. How competent is your team? 

A. Fairly competent because they are 

experienced, although some find it 

difficult to adapt to change and I am 

concerned about increased errors and 

their ability to hit stretched targets. 

B. Fairly competent - they can always 

ask a line manager if they are unsure. 

C. Competent - regular training reminds 

them of best practice and covers 

new areas. They understand recent 

changes and enjoy honing new skills. 

We relish the next challenge – it keeps 

work interesting. 

4. Does the team enjoy having external 

trainers who are a credit/collections 

specialist? 

A. Don’t know – they haven’t been 

involved in any externally led credit/ 

collections training. 

B. Yes – they enjoy delivery by 

somebody new and pick up new 

ideas more easily. 

C. Yes – the trainers challenge their 

thinking and inspire them to try 

out new approaches. Their 

enthusiasm seems infectious – like a 

tonic. 

5.Which best describes your 

team’s views about their personal 

development? 

A. I don’t think they have really 

considered this – they enjoy their job 

and have limited ambitions. 

B. They know their areas for 

development and are working to 

improve these. 

C. They are proud of their progress 

as credit/collections professionals. 

Training and qualifications have 

increased their knowledge, confidence 

and skills – some hope now to become 

fully qualified. 

MAINLY As 

Sounds like some training would give your 

team more confidence and increase their 

ability to cope with new challenges. Perhaps 

ask them to choose a training programme 

which they would find helpful (see CICM 

Training Directory on the website) or identify 

training needs from performance reviews. 

After training, collect feedback and results to 

help show return on investment. 

MAINLY Bs 

You clearly have a good support network 

and training. Encourage the team to make 

learning visible by recording any learning 

activities, and sending records of continuous 

professional development (CPD) to CICM 

for certification each year, (free service for 

CICM members). Push for funding for further 

training to motivate, reinforce best practice 

and ensure consistency. It will help increase 

the depth of knowledge and skills so that 

they are less reliant on line managers. 

MAINLY Cs 

Your team are probably already partly 

qualified being in a department which 

supports personal development and 

recognises the value of well trained 

and qualified credit/collections 

professionals. Encourage the team to 

read Credit Management and other CICM 

communications and follow discussions on 

Twitter and LinkedIn to keep abreast with 

new developments. Organise advanced 

training to continue to build skills and 

motivation. 



SMASH 

YOUR TARGETS 

TRAINING provides more than 

the technical knowledge and 

skills to ensure compliance with 

organisational practices and 

regulatory requirements. High quality 

training, delivered by an external trainer, 

inspires and motivate teams. Don’t leave 

it too late in your financial year to invest in 

your team. Read the feedback below about 

a range of CICM training programmes in 

collections, compliance and credit risk 

assessment to see the value. 

‘Brilliant trainer. Excellent motivator. 

Inspiring and enthusiastic in the way of 

presenting. Good at transferring knowledge/ 

experience. Perfect person to run this 

course. Worked in the industry, great 

personality.’ 

‘One of the best – really enjoyed the 

workshop, very interesting and gained 

some good ideas. Good to talk to other 

people and their experiences. The trainer 

was very enthusiastic, knowledgeable. 

Would definitely attend another workshop’ 

‘The trainer was full of enthusiasm and 

knowledge - made it interesting and fun. 

Fantastic.’ 

‘I think the course was presented with so 

many external industry insights it was by far 

above what I was expecting. I thoroughly 

enjoyed the day. I’m going to look into a lot 

more information about our company that is 

publicly available. The day has helped put 

things into perspective and see the wider 

picture. Really great trainer, loved the work 

experience shared.’ 

‘The trainer was incredibly 

knowledgeable/credible and well prepared; 

able to answer all questions – clearly, 

a subject expert. Definitely feel more 

knowledgeable on the topic of FCA 

structure, expectations etc.’ 

‘The trainer was great and changed 

my views. I will carry out more income 

and expenditures statements now and be 

able to advise customers of better debt 

solutions.’ 

‘I had no idea of fraud strategy before 

today, recoveries information, industry 

comparison. It was good to get the view 

of an industry expert. Feel far more 

knowledgeable about this area now.’ 

‘The trainer is impressively well prepared 

and his knowledge is breath taking. I was 

impressed by the conclusions he was 

able to draw by just seeing some figures. 

I will review the handouts and try tools 

(z scores) on several examples to check 

understanding. I can definitely use this 

knowledge to improve my work. I will be 

more analytical when assessing a company 

for credit purposes.’ 

‘The training really got me thinking. I will 

try now to identify if we could give higher 

credit code to our customers, based on the 

information from the training. I will start by 

analysing our top customers (to practice and 

to give a more complete account to sales).’ 

‘I really valued the training day. I am now 

more confident about taking credit decisions 

and will try to show colleagues how to do 

this too.’ 

‘This training opened my eyes to what 

credit management is all about. I will try to 

analyse credit reports better and pay more 

attention to high risk economy sectors.’ 

CICM runs open training days for 

key programmes in London which cover 

introductory training, skills boosters and 

advanced skills (see page 46 and CICM 

website for details). These are ideal for small 

teams. Programmes can be delivered incompany 

at your premises. 

All in-company training can be tailored 

to your organisation. Contact Julie Dalton, 

CICM Training Adviser for an informal chat 

about your requirements. 



EDUCATION 

CICM IS THE RECOGNISED STANDARD IN CREDIT MANAGEMENT 

IS IT TIME TO 

QUALIFY OUR 

TEAMS? 

RECOGNITION of Credit Management 

as a Chartered Profession is only 

one step towards establishing credit 

management as a career of choice. 

Few looking for fulfilling and challenging 

careers would regard a role as being 

aspirational if there was limited training 

and few qualifications needed to practice. 

Qualifications build in-depth knowledge 

and skills, support career development and 

raise the profile of credit management and 

collections. 

Nowadays there are many ways to study 

qualifications in credit management and 

collections: in-company classes, evening 

classes, virtual classes, and supported and 

unsupported distance learning. Learners 

can complete assignments based on work 

experience or training, or take on larger 

qualification courses leading to exams. 

If you have a team, the best way to plan 

a programme is to contact the CICM 

Learning and Development team to discuss 

your options (telephone 01780 722909. 

Email professionalqualifications@cicm.com). 

However, meanwhile you could follow 

Veolia Environmental Services’ example 

and introduce 30-Day Challenge 

assignments. Brian Morgan, Credit 

Manager at the CICM accredited Centre of 

Excellence, has encouraged all his team 

to complete assignments which cover 

areas such as cash collections, credit 

application processing, credit risk analysis 

and debt recovery. This is a good way 

to challenge the team and recognise 

skills. 

If your team know their job well and 

have a good procedures manual, the 

small 3-credit awards should not be too 

difficult. Learners will need to allow about 

6 – 10 hours to complete each assignment, 

depending on the complexity of their role. 

Their line manager or a coach can provide 

guidance on the questions and feedback on 

answers. The awards cost £83 assessment 

entry fee per assignment (and membership 

fees for non-members). 

How do to get started with 30 Day 

Challenges? 

1. Contact the CICM Awarding Body for 

the assignment, entry form and guidance 

booklet (awardingbody@cicm.com or 

call 01780 722909), 

2. Arrange completion of entry forms and 

send them with payment (credit or debit 

card only) to the CICM Awarding Body 

by 16 November 2015. Entries will be 

accepted until the 16 November 2015 for 

the standard fee of £83 per assessment 

or 20 November 2015 on payment of an 

additional late payment fee of £30. 

3. When learners have finished their 

assignment, arrange for them to 

complete the cover sheet and gain a 

signature from their line manager to 

verify that the assignment is a true 

reflection of their role and has been 

written in their own words. 

4. Send their completed assignments with 

cover sheets to the CICM Awarding 

Body by 11 January 2016. 

Don’t leave it too late in your financial year! 

WE CAN HELP YOUR TEAM TO 

Smash your targets Improve your DSO 

Build lasting customer relationships Reduce legal costs 

Advanced Telephone Collections Negotiating and Influencing 

Psychology of Collections Credit Risk Analysis/Assessment 

CICM qualifications, training and webinars are the recognised standard in the credit industry. 

They can be delivered at your premises and tailored to meet specific organisation or industry-sector 

requirements. Visit our website to see our full Training Directory 

For an informal chat about your specific requirements, contact Julie 

t: 01780 722907 e: julie.dalton@cicm.com 



www.portfoliocreditcontrol.com 

At Portfolio Credit Control we pride ourselves on our 

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We know Credit Control and we also understand what makes 

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ROLES WE RECRUIT FOR: 

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SALES LEDGER/ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE 

CREDIT ANALYST 

THE 


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tel:020 7650 3199 


New Liverpool House, 15 Eldon Street, 

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and friendly team that are focused 

on new and ongoing benefit realisation and 

you have the foundations for successful long 

term business relationships. 

rimilia.com 



Ability to manage cashflow is crucial and 

control and management of debtors is 

often a ‘painful’ task involving manual and 

repetitive processes. Safe Credit Control 

solutions enable your credit management 

team to improve cash flow, reduce debtor 

days, increase customer service, cut the 

cost of cash collection, eliminate manual 

processes and speed up the query 

resolution process. 

safe-creditcontrol.co.uk 

Sidetrade’s market-leading Cloud solutions 

co-ordinate the activities of finance, customer 

services and sales involved in the 

Order-To-Cash cycle, reducing late payment 

and controlling customer risk. Sidetrade’s 

Clients reduce their DSO the first three 

months and increase the productivity (31%) 

of their collection teams, allowing Credit 

Managers to dedicate more time to building 

long term customer relationships and 

achieve their goals. 

sidetrade.co.uk 

Tinubu Square is a trusted source of trade 

credit intelligence for credit insurers and for 

corporate customers. The company’s B2B 

Credit Risk Intelligence solutions include the 

Tinubu Risk Management Center, a cloudbased 

SaaS platform; the Tinubu Credit 

Intelligence service and the Tinubu Risk 

Analyst advisory service. Over 250 

companies rely on Tinubu Square to protect 

their greatest assets: customer receivables. 

tinubu.com 

M.A.H. is a global leader in Export Debt 

Collection & Trade Dispute Resolution 

Services. Headquartered in Switzerland, 

we specialise in resolving cross-border 

cases swiftly and amicably. Our mission is to 

ensure that all creditors receive full payment 

for products or services sold out of the UK 

without expensive and lengthy litigation. 

Having recovered payments from 112 

countries, we rank as first choice among major 

international exporters, export credit insurers, 

governmental organisations, and other B2B 

customers in all industries. 

mah-international.com 

Credica are a UK based developer of specialist 

Credit and Dispute Management software. 

We have been successfully implementing our 

software for over 15 years and have delivered 

significant ROI for our diverse portfolio of 

customers. We provide a highly configurable 

system which enables our clients to gain 

complete control over their debtors and to 

easily communicate disputes with anyone in 

their organisation. 

credica.co.uk 

The recognised standard 

in Credit Management 

For further information and to discuss the opportunities of entering into a Corporate 

Partnership with the CICM, contact Peter Collinson, Director of Business Development 

and Marketing on 01780 727273 or email peter.collinson@cicm.com 



Does my bum look 

big in this? 

Improve your bottom line with Safe Credit Control 

Comprehensive software solution that reduces debtor days, enhances 

customer service, cuts the cost of cash collection, improves cash flow, 

eliminates manual processes and speeds up the query resolution process. 

0844 583 2134 

Head office: Safe, 20 Freeschool Lane, Leicester, LE1 4FY 

info@safecomputing.co.uk www.safe-creditcontrol.co.uk 



HOSTED BY: 

ENTRIES CLOSE 

FRIDAY 30 OCTOBER 

AT 5PM! 

CICM BRITISH CREDIT AWARDS 2016 

THE RECOGNISED STANDARD 

10 FEBRUARY 2016, THE BREWERY, LONDON 

Have you submitted your entries for the CICM 

British Credit Awards 2016? Entries close on 

Friday 30 October so don’t miss out on your 

chance to win one of these prestigious awards. 

Jointly hosted by the Chartered Institute of Credit 

Management (CICM), and Jobs in Credit, the 

CICM British Credit Awards are the recognised 

standard in the credit and collections industry, 

representing the pinnacle of achievement and 

rewarding outstanding performance. 

START YOUR ENTRIES TODAY! 

cicmbritishcreditawards.com 

SCAN HERE TO VIEW THE 

FULL LIST OF CATEGORIES 

AND CRITERIA 

SPONSORS: 

IN ASSOCIATION WITH: 



FORTHCOMING EVENTS 2015 

FULL LIST OF EVENTS CAN BE FOUND ON OUR WEBSITE: 

WWW.CICM.COM/EVENTS 

CICM EVENTS 

9 October 

3 

CICM 2015 Turner Lecture 

LONDON 17:30 – 20:00 

You are invited to a lecture on the subject of “Unfair 

Relationships” undertaken by two barristers from Henderson 

Chambers followed by a talk from past President of the CICM, 

professor Robert Turner. 

Additionally, you are also invited to the Parliament Chamber for 

an after event meal, ticket prices for the meal are £90+VAT. 

Contact: To book your place; please email Richard 

Seadon at richards@tgbaynes.com. 

Venue: The Inner Temple, Crown Office Row, London, 

EC4Y 


CICM West Midlands Branch 

BIRMINGHAM 

The event is free to attend and is being presented by Martin Kirby, 

Head of Credit at Adecco. 

Registration is at 08:00 with the presentation to commence at 

08:30. There will be a light breakfast served at around 10:15, and 

the event should finish by 12:30. This is a marvellous opportunity 

to attend a free event and understand the mechanics behind the 

workings and methodology in a Shared Service Centre. 

Contact: Sue Byrne on T: +44 (0)1922 452881 or 

E: sue@kjwatkin.co.uk 

Venue: Holiday Inn Express, Snow Hill, 1 Snow Hill Plaza, 

St Chads, Queensway, Birmingham, B4 6HY. 

6 


CICM Masterclass – Technology 

Solutions for Credit and Collections 

– Chester 

CHESTER 

This masterclass will explore current and future technology 

solutions for the credit industry, offering insight into some of 

the challenges of implementation and how to secure a positive 

outcome. The event is vendor focussed, featuring solutions for 

discrete parts of the bill-to-cash process as well as end-to-end 

solutions. 

Contact: TO RESERVE PLACES EMAIL: 

icm@fedakmav.plus.com 

Venue: MBNA Ltd, Chester Business Park, Heronsway, 

Chester CH4 9FB 


Fraud – Spotting the Fraudster 

SHEFFIELD 18:00 for 18:30 

Alan Norton, Head of Intelligence, Graydon UK Ltd, and the 

Annual Fun Quiz with Prizes. Drinks and refreshments included 

Contact: cm@fedakmav.plus.com 

Venue: Mercure Sheffield Parkway Hotel, Britannia Way, 

Catcliffe, Sheffield, S60 5BD 


The DNA of a Credit Manager 

WEBINAR 13:30 – 14:00 

Join this webinar to build a better understanding of what it takes 

to make it to the top, and what to 

think about to future-proof your career with what is going to 

be at the top of the agenda for credit managers in five years 

from now. 

Contact: Visit www.cicm.com to book your space. 

OTHER EVENTS 


CCR-interactive and the Credit 

Excellence Awards 2015 

LONDON 

CPD 

CPD 

Do not miss the chance to book your place at CCR-interactive 

and the Credit Excellence Awards, in association with Marston 

Holdings, at the Guoman Tower Hotel, London on Tuesday 6 

October 2015. 

Contact: please contact Alison Lucas on T: +44 (0)1702 

341948 or at E: alison@ccrmagazine.co.uk. 

Venue: Guoman Tower Hotel, St Katharine's Way, 

London, E1W 1LD 

6 - 8 October 

IRRV Annual Conference and 

Exhibition 2015 

TELFORD 

The first day will consist entirely of plenary sessions whilst the 

second day will contain three separate streams: Local Taxation & 

Revenues, Benefits and Valuation. The final morning will provide 

delegates with a general update on everything that is happening 

within the Profession. The Performance Awards Gala Dinner 

2015 will take place on the Wednesday evening when this years 

winners will be announced. 

Contact: http://www.irrvpayments.co.uk/orders_ 

worldpay/index.asp?id=1578 

Venue: Telford International Centre, St Quentin Gate, 

Telford, TF3 4JH 


ICTF Webcast: 

WEBCAST 

This webcast will focus on the ‘need to know’ U.S. bankruptcy 

concepts and how they impact trade creditors in business 

insolvencies. 

Contact: http://www.ictfworld.org/events/event_details. 

asp?id=674448&group= 

CICM members can obtain a US$50 discount against 

the advertised registration fees by emailing tim.lane@ 

ictfworld.org 

4 


SMF [Senior Management Forum] 

STRATFORD UPON AVON 

The Senior Management Forum (SMF) has been 

the leading peer group for senior finance and credit 

managers since 2006. It provides a unique community 

for members to meet, network and learn. The aim is to 

equip members with the practical strategies they need to 

meet the challenges of a changing business environment 

and add value to their roles. 

Contact: For more information and an information pack, 

E: smf@pandaforums.com 

Venue: Stratford upon Avon, 


ICTF Webcast: Financing Your Export 

Sales Using Forfaiting, Factoring and 

ForFactoring 

WEBCAST 

Learn how you can use forfaiting and cross-border factoring 

to improve your cash flow and mitigate risk while offering your 

customers extended payment terms. 

Contact: http://www.ictfworld.org/events/event_details. 

asp?id=668996&group= 

CICM members can obtain a US$50 discount against 

the advertised registration fees by emailing tim.lane@ 

ictfworld.org 


Construction Materials 

Credit Forum 

STRATFORD UPON AVON 

The Construction Materials Forum (CMF) was developed 

in consultation with key credit managers in the national 

construction materials supply industry. . It aims to equip 

members with the practical tools they need to meet the 

challenges of the construction. 




CPD 

CPD 

4 


Experian Credit Forum – BPF 

Polymers & Compounders 

LONDON 

Experian host a Credit Forum for the Polymer Distributors & 

Compounders Group, in association with the British Plastics 

Federation. Accounts for discussion, topics, benchmarking and 

best practices are all covered during the meetings. 

Contact: Email: brent.cumming@experian.com 

Venue: TBA 


Corporate Partner Sidetrade: 

Breakfast Roundtable for Credit 

Managers 

LONDON 

Implementing a dedicated A/R solution is an effective way to 

improve collection productivity and spread a cash culture within 

your organisation. However, getting the positive impact of this 

project requires to address several key points to ensure a 

smooth transition for your team and a quick ROI. 

Contact: http://www.sidetrade.com/About-Sidetrade/ 

Events/SIDETRADE-Breakfast-roundtable 

Venue: The Gherkin, 30 St Mary Axe, London, EC3A 8EP 


TICG (The Cross Industry 

Credit Group) 

BRACKNELL 

Formed in early 1991 and originally the Computer Manufacturers’ 

Industry Group, the TICG is now in its 23rd year of quarterly 

meetings. 

Contact: E: ticg@pandaforums.com 

Venue: TBA 


SAP User Group Forum 

MILTON KEYNES 

The SAP User Group was started in 1996 as an independent, 

cross-industry user group to support managers working in 

credit and finance. The focus is to maximise members’ use and 

understanding of the SAP system and its modules. The group 

originally focused on A/R, but we extended to add an A/P stream, 

following requests from members and prospects. The aim in 

both cases is to provide an assured benefit to members. 

Contact: E: sap.ug@pandaforums.com 

Venue: TBA 


DRF (IT Distributor and 

Reseller Credit Forum) 

STRATFORD UPN AVON 

The DRF was developed in 2003 by P&A, in conjunction with 

Graydon. It focuses primarily on credit, collections and risk 

management and fraud prevention, aiming to equip members 

with the practical tools they need to meet the challenges of a 

changing business environment, and add value to their roles. 





Experian Credit Forum – 

FMCG Group 

TBA 

FMCG Group Credit Forum (Fast moving Consumable Goods, 

Manufacturers) Formally 2 groups, now merged into one super 

group of over 45 members. Companies from confectionery, 

drinks, tobacco, frozen, ambient and bakery sectors attend. 

Agenda includes accounts for discussion, best practice, topics 

and guest speakers. 

Contact: Email: brent.cumming@experian.com 

CPD 

4 

CPD 

4 

CPD 

4 

CPD 

4 



DO NOT 

MISS OUT: 

LAST CHANCE TO BOOK! 

in association with 

CCR 

credit 

excellence 

awards2015 


Targeting the information you need 

Tuesday 6 October 2015 Guoman Tower Hotel, Central London 

“Still the go-to event for the credit industry.” 

CCR-interactive is the largest and leading one-day 

conference, brought to you by the publishers of 

Credit Collections & Risk. 

Learn how to develop a truly world-class credit control team and 

about best practice in increasing profi table sales. Consider whether 

DSO is still the best measure of collections performance. Hear 

about how to improve the profi le of the credit professional and 

the rise and rise of the ‘virtual customer’. 

Keynote speakers: 

Professor Jagjit Chadha; 

Debbie Abrahams MP 

To fi nd out information about how to get involved in 2015’s landmark event, please contact 

Gary Lucas on 07785 268404 or at gary@ccrmagazine.co.uk. 

For more information on attending and to receive your delegate pack, please contact 

Alison Lucas on 01702 341948 or at alison@ccrmagazine.co.uk. 

Sponsors for the day include: 

EQUINOX 

GLOBAL 

part of Echo Managed Services 



CICM BRANCH NEWS 

THAMES VALLEY BRANCH 

WHAT’S IN A CREDIT MANAGER’S DNA 

DELOITTES was the host for the Thames 

Valley Branch’s event that saw James Adey 

of Hays Credit Management present its 

DNA of a Credit Manager report. 

James began by stating the survey had 

been sent to around 500 credit managers 

across the UK at the end of 2014 of 

which 70-80 percent were in businessto-business, 

and proceeded to walk us 

through some slides on demographics. 

Moving on, we were shown that there 

was a strong trend in credit managers 

taking steps to develop themselves through 

a number of channels – partnering with key 

departments outside of credit management, 

networking events and staying relevant with 

the latest industry changes. There was also 

an expectation that the trend in those within 

the profession wanting to obtain credit 

qualifications would grow. 

The next few slides walked us through 

what challenges managers foresee in 

the next 12 months – for themselves 

personally and the businesses they work 

within and the skills required to be a credit 

manager – ability to manage people, a solid 

commercial understanding and managing 

risk being those identified as most 

important. 

The presentation concluded with saying 

credit managers are a very balanced 

profession in terms of gender and age 

profile which attracts commercially astute 

individuals who enjoy working with others – 

the conclusion also referenced the buzz we 

get from bringing in the money! 

A question and answer session was 

then held by Jason Braidwood, Creditsafe; 

Bryony Petitfor, Axiter and CICM Chair; Tony 

Lambert, Hays Credit Management; and 

Chris Edwards (Deloitte) fielding questions 

from a 45 strong audience. 

The evening ended with more networking 

over food and drinks. Special thanks 

to Deloitte for an excellent venue and 

refreshments. 

Author: Tony Lambert 

EAST MIDLANDS BRANCH 

THRILLS, SPILLS AND WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN 

THE East Midlands Branch hosted a 

social event at the Nottingham Greyhound 

Stadium, where a good turnout on a warm 

summer evening enjoyed a pie and peas 

supper, followed by nine excellent races run 

in a great atmosphere, with viewing for the 

keener punters being up close to the action, 

beside the track. 

The evening included a race 

accumulator bet for the nine races and one 

of our Committee members, Joanne, found 

herself on the way to the £3,000 payable 

for choosing the winner in all nine races, 

having chosen the winner in the first six 

races. However although ahead for most 

of the seventh race, her greyhound was 

just beaten by another greyhound – which 

our Chairman had bet on to win. Brent swiftly 

made his way to the bar to buy a half of 

reconciliation lager for the dejected Joanne! 

As well as the excellent food, everyone 

enjoyed a drink, a flutter or two, and the 

chance to catch up with other members in the 

relaxed atmosphere. Author: Glenn Walker 

To include your branch reports in the November issue of Credit Managment magazine, submit your 

copy by 8 October via email to branches@cicm.com or andrew.morris@cicm.com 



SUSSEX AND SURREY BRANCH 

INSIGHTFUL PRESENTATION 

MEMBERS of the Sussex and Surrey 

branch and their guests were treated 

to an entertaining evening at this year’s 

summer party. Held at the impressive AMEX 

Stadium in Brighton, attendees networked 

whilst enjoying drinks and buffet, before 

commencing on a behind the scenes tour of 

the ground. 

Stephen Allinson (leading insolvency 

and debt recovery solicitor) then gave us 

a very insightful talk on finance within the 

football world. Stephen has always been 

heavily involved in football, having been 

Director of Yeovil Town FC for nearly 20 

years. The presentation sparked a heated 

debate and Stephen’s behind the scenes 

stories certainly surprised and shocked us! 

An excellent and enjoyable evening 

that was generously sponsored by Moore 

Stephens National Creditors Services. 

Author: Natascha Whitehead 

THE THAMES VALLEY BRANCH 

HEALTHY PROGRESSION 

HAVING attended three careers fairs in 

2015, we wanted to share our progression 

so that might act as a guide for other 

branches looking to do the same thing. 

This year’s opening event was held at 

Newland girl’s school in Maidenhead. 

Armed with promotional material that 

included the old logo (Chinese New Year 

delayed the CICM promo gear reaching us 

in time, of course), a self-made laminated 

sign (branch banner remained on order), 

a white tablecloth and some cakes (the 

organiser told us that they would be a 

good ice-breaker), we enthusiastically set 

up our stand. Needless to say it was not 

particularly eye-catching compared to some 

others, though we were in a good location 

that ensured contact with many students. 

We began by explaining to visitors what 

the CICM does, about our Royal Charter, 

the learning options available, and the 

benefits of membership. Yet we quickly 

realised this was information overload 

so refined our ‘spiel’ to something more 

manageable around representing the credit 

profession, every company having a credit 

department, and it being a great way to 

access a company. 

This approach worked very well and 

feedback from the students and organisers 

was very positive. 

We were joined by Hays for the next 

careers fair in Basingstoke (Queen Marys 

College), and by now we had the new 

promo gear, CICM banner, a PowerPoint 

running on a laptop, and the essential 

cakes, though this time in smaller sizes so 

we didn’t run out! 

The presence of Hays and the banner 

was a good fit as we explained how firms 

(such as Hays), can help you find a job – 

and being able to quote starting salaries 

from Hays’ guide also proved an eyeopener 

to the students. 

By the time we held our third event 

(Baylis Court school in Slough) we had all 

the gear, looked the part and had our talks 

well rehearsed - though one minor addition 

to the stand this time around was fruit to 

accompany the sweets/cakes. 

The committee is currently drawing up a 

list of key points of contact in local schools 

and colleges to ensure we are offering our 

services in all regions in a co-ordinated 

manner, and we look forward to visiting 

Kendrick School, Reading, in October 

Many thanks must go to Ruth Howard, 

James Adey and Heidi Pocock for 

volunteering their time, and to the students 

who we hope remain interested! 

Author: Gary Baker 

NAME: 

Heather Gout 

CURRENT TITLE: 

Credit Controller 

COMPANY: 

Total Computer 

Networks Limited 

HOW LONG YOU’VE WORKED 

IN CREDIT MANAGEMENT: Five years 

HOW LONG WORKED AT YOUR CURRENT 

COMPANY: Five years 

60SECONDS 

HOW DID YOU GET INTO CREDIT 

MANAGEMENT? 

In 2010 I’d finished my AAT Intermediate level 

and I didn’t think I’d like credit control, but the 

employment agency I joined thought otherwise, 

and so I agreed to try one assignment. 

WHAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT WHERE 

YOU WORK? 

The people and their energy. Total Computer 

Networks is full of people who love what they do 

and do it well. 

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU? 

Finding new ways to make things happen and 

problem solve. 

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE MEAL? 

The next one! 

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE HOLIDAY 

DESTINATION? 

Vancouver, Canada - where I grew up. 

WITH 

NAME THREE PEOPLE YOU WOULD 

INVITE TO A DINNER PARTY AND WHY? 

Ugh, I hate dinner parties. But if Stephen Fry and 

the QI Elves wanted to come over for a BBQ, that 

would be great. 

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE PASTIME/ 

RELAXATION ACTIVITY? 

It changes, a few years ago it was podcasting, then 

creative writing, but right now I’m crazy about 

doing MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). 

IF YOU WERE TO HAVE ONE SPECIAL 

POWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY? 

I’d like to time travel to get first-hand experience 

of historic events. 

WHAT IS THE BEST/WORST QUALITY IN A 

LEADER? 

The best quality is introversion. People think 

extroverts make better leaders, but they just hog 

the limelight when they ought to help their team 

shine. The worst quality is insecurity. 

WHAT CAN'T YOU LIVE WITHOUT? 

Books 

WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU 

WASTED MONEY ON? 

Books 

WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE QUOTE OR 

MOTTO? 

“There are two ways to slide easily through life; to 

believe everything or to doubt everything. Both 

ways save us from thinking.” Alfred Korzybski, 

logician & scientist (1879 - 1950) 

IF YOU WEREN’T WORKING IN CREDIT 

MANAGEMENT, WHAT WOULD YOU BE 

DOING? 

I would love to work in radio and host my own 

show. 

The recognised standard in credit management www.cicm.com October 2015 55

DON’T MISS 

YOUR NEXT BIG 

MOVE IN CREDIT 

At Hays Credit Management, our consultants are all affiliate members of the 

CICM and understand both the demands you face and the skills you need to 

thrive within your industry. We can therefore offer you personalised 

careers advice and the support that you need. 

LEGAL BILLING EXPERT 

MAKE THE FUNCTION YOUR OWN 

London, up to £34,000 

A rare opportunity has arisen at a niche City based 

legal firm for a highly motivated and experienced biller. 

With a strong emphasis on partner engagement and 

the full billing function, you will focus on maximising the 

efficiency of the firm’s billings. With solid communication 

skills, you will be the first point of contact for the whole 

firm’s billing queries. This is an excellent opportunity 

where you can achieve results and take real ownership 

of the whole function. 

Ref: 2537534 

Contact Matthew Ardron on 020 3465 0018 

or email matthew.ardron@hays.com 

SENIOR CREDIT CONTROLLER 

TAKE THE NEXT STEP IN YOUR CAREER 

Bracknell, £30,000 + benefits 

This prestigious company is seeking an exceptional 

credit professional who is passionate about credit control 

and collections. You will have demonstrable experience 

in a similar multi-national transactional finance role 

with responsibility for collections, billing and invoicing 

processes. You will ideally be CICM qualified or you could 

also be part-qualified with evidence of career progression 

in your current role. In return is a fantastic opportunity 

for further progression with the possibility of promotion 

to supervisory level within 18-months. Ref: 2542852 

Contact James Adey on 0118 907 0321 

or email james.adey@hays.com 

If you are looking to further your career, want to 

strengthen your team or would like an overview 

of the market, it pays to speak to the market leaders. 

Contact us at creditcontrol@hays.com 

hays.co.uk/creditcontrol 




IMPROVE RAPPORT ACROSS BORDERS 

Watford, £23,000-£25,000 

This international blue chip organisation is now seeking 

a Spanish and Italian speaking credit controller. You 

will take responsibility for a variety of credit functions 

requiring you to have previous credit control experience, 

fluency in Spanish and Italian, as well as solid IT skills. 

On offer is a fantastic benefits package which includes 

25 days holiday, private healthcare and pension, parking 

on-site and spacious, modern offices. With exceptional 

interpersonal skills, this is a brilliant opportunity to use 

your language abilities to enhance your career within 

a highly regarded business. 

Ref: 2535350 

Contact Emily Oakes on 01923 205286 

or email emily.oakes@hays.com 

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE ASSISTANT 

PROVIDE EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE 

Chelmsford, £20,000-£24,000 

A highly commercial and reputable organisation is 

seeking a strong individual to join its finance team on a 

five-month fixed-term contract. You will be responsible 

for managing the intercompany and e-commerce 

platform, dealing with queries, chasing and reducing 

bad debt/DSO and allocating funds received. This is a 

great opportunity to work in a modern environment for a 

recognisable brand. You should be immediately available, 

confident and must have previous experience working 

within accounts receivable. 

Ref: 2541020 

Contact Cameron Price on 01245 244900 

or email cameron.price@hays.com 


EXPERTLY OWN THE PROCESS 

South Lanarkshire, £18,000 

This growing business seeks a motivated individual to 

join its finance team of eight. You will work alongside 

another credit controller and report directly into the 

Finance Controller. You will manage the full process 

which includes a high volume ledger of business 

accounts, taking responsibility for credit checking, cash 

application and reporting on a daily basis. This business 

offers extremely competitive benefits including free 

on-site car parking and the experience of working in a 

knowledgeable team. Ref: 2551560 

Contact Hazel Wynn on 0141 212 3665 

or email hazel.wynn@hays.com 


DRIVE EXCEPTIONAL RESULTS 

Billericay, up to £25,000 + benefits 

Working for an award winning care provider, you will 

manage the income for this business with over 1,200 

customers. You will develop strong relationships, 

ensuring that all outstanding payments are collected 

quickly and look at how processes can be improved for 

the continued success of the company. With a stable 

career in credit, you will have the ability to think outside 

the box in order to achieve excellent results. In return is a 

range of fantastic benefits including free on-site parking, 

study support, two bonus schemes and a competitive 

salary for the local area. 

Ref: 2550578 

Contact Gemma Booty on 01245 244900 

or email gemma.booty@hays.com 


MAKE AN IMPACT 

Trafford, £18,000-£22,000 

This leading plant hire company is looking to grow its 

finance department and as a result is now seeking an 

ambitious individual to join its team on a permanent 

basis. You will provide support to a team of credit 

controllers, collecting aged debt from customers by 

telephone, letter and email. You will also deal with 

queries and produce debt reports for senior staff. You 

will have previous credit control experience, a confident 

telephone manner, solid negotiation skills and be able to 

work towards targets. 

Ref: 2530091 

Contact Richard Salmon on 0161 236 7272 

or email richard.salmon@hays.com 

MEDIA CREDIT CONTROLLER 

BUILD EFFECTIVE RELATIONSHIPS 

Hammersmith, £13 per hour 

Highly regarded, this recognised media organisation is 

seeking an experienced credit controller to join its team 

on a six-month contract. With strong communication 

skills, you will focus on dealing with client queries as 

well as allocating payments, issuing invoices, reconciling 

accounts and chasing debt. You will be extremely 

organised, confident and able to manage multiple tasks 

on a daily basis. Ideally you will have previously worked 

within the entertainment industry. 

Ref: 1767947 

Contact Charlotte Lewin on 020 3465 0018 

or email charlotte.lewin@hays.com 



NEW CICM MEMBERS 

THE INSTITUTE WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS WHO JOINED DURING AUGUST 

MEMBER 

ASSOCIATE 

NAME COMPANY NAME COMPANY 

Paul Hackman 

Carl Hackman 

Paul Levy 

Anthony Persse 

CCI Legal Services Limited 

CCI Legal Services Limited 

First Utility 

Ultimate Finance Group 

Nicola Holland 

Samantha White 

Breathe Interiors 

AFFILIATE 

NAME COMPANY NAME COMPANY 

Gatsha Abrams 

Ulender Adams 

Mandira Aich 

Karl Aikenhead 

Rachael Bentley 

Ugur Bilal 

Yannick Bokale Mumpamela 

Justin Brason 

Richard Bray 

Cheraine Bryant 

Rachel Buchanan 

Johanna Carr-Neal 

Silvana Chowdhury 

Jane Coombs 

Deborah Cresswell 

Martin Cuerden 

Simon Darby 

Owain Davies 

Carlos Diaz 

Kevin Dobinson 

Jennifer Donohoe 

Peter Dyer 

Kirsty Edwards 

Suzanne Ferris 

Emma Fitzgibbons 

Dayna Greeney 

Annemarie Griffiths 

Asim Gull 

Dean Hall 

Michael Hancock 

Tracy Harding 

Mark John 

Charlotte Kenny-Canavan 

Richard Kitson 

Carla Knowles 

Julie Lack-Jones 

Sean Long 

Thomas Loynes 

Victoria Lustgarten 

Kevin Mallon 

Stephen Malloy 

OBK Group 

NHBC National House Building Council 

Elsar Limited 

Bridgewater Support Solutions Ltd 

Gateley Plc 

Sentra Security 


Help-Link UK Limited 

Diageo 

PricewaterhouseCoopers 

Cereform Ltd 

Bristow & Sutor 

VPS (UK) Ltd 


SD Legal Service Ltd 

Excel Civil Enforcement 


J Reddington Ltd 

National Grid 


Berg & Co 

Diageo 

Linear Recruitment 

SRUC 

Hays Specialist Recruitment Ltd 


High Court Enforcement Group Ltd 

Active Process 

The D B G UK Ltd 


Gap Personnel Holdings Ltd 

IPC Information Systems 

Cobell Limited 

Constant & Co 

Cook Trading Limited 


Cofely 


Andrew Martin 

Neil McCartney 

Katie McKeown 

Seurina Meek 

Joanna Miler-Janicka 

Neil Mitchell 

Maria Muntoni 

Nicola Nairn 

Evgeni Nesterova 

Lee-Anthony New 

Emma-Jane Newell 

Veselina Nikolova 

Neil Ormerod 

Wendy Parker 

Aneesh Prasad 

Aidan Rafferty 

Mohammed Rahman 

Nadia Reiter 

Jade Renshaw 

Lynne Robson 

Michael Salt 

Khyatiben Shah 

Ben Smart 

Paul Smith 

Sarah Smith 

Sharon Somers 

Jason Southway 

Zoe Spowage 

David Stone 

Shabnam Subhani 

Austyn Symonds 

Angela Taggart 

Sarah Tomoloju 

Anda Vilima 

Mohammed Waheed 

Gillian Wilson 

Georgina Wood 

Tracey Woodcock 

Esther Wright 

Christopher Wright 

Wayne York 


Diageo 

Hope Construction Materials 

Discovery Education Europe Ltd 

Boart Longyear 

Westfields Stratford City Centre Management 

Kohler Mira Ltd 

Home Delivery Network T/A Yodel 

Boart Longyear LLC 

AGCO Finance Ltd 

Orange Genie Admin Ltd 

Volund Timber Ltd 


MHM Plant Ltd 

Gateley Plc 

Diageo 

Simpson Spence Young 

Unipart Rail Ltd 

Phoenix IT 

The Cooper Group Ltd 


Mastered Ltd 

Adapt Services Limited 

Tata Steel Europe Limited 

ABP UK 

Peri Ltd 


Cellhire Plc 

Constant & Co 

Bunzl Greenham 


Barclaycard 

Randstad UK Holding 

Alliance Healthcare 


Diageo 

Able Investigations & Enforcements 

Lyreco UK Ltd 

AGCO Finance Ltd 

Hafele UK Ltd 


AFFILIATE (JUNE) 

NAME 

Andrea Perrett 

COMPANY 

Birmingham Metropolitan College 



Cr£ditWho? 

CICM Directory of Services 

FOR INFORMATION, 

OPTIONS AND PRICING 

PLEASE EMAIL: 

anthony.cave@cabbell.co.uk 

COLLECTIONS 

COURT ENFORCEMENT SERVICES 

Premium Collections Limited 

Office 3, Caidan House Business Centre, Canal Road, 

Timperley, Altrincham, Cheshire, WA14 1TD 

T: 0161 962 4695. 

F: 0333 121 3843 

E: enquiries@premiumcollections.co.uk 

W: www.premiumcollections.co.uk 

Premium Collections Limited has the credit management solution 

to suit you. Operating on a national and international basis we 

can tailor a package of products and services to meet your 

requirements. Staffed by dedicated professionals with over 60 

years combined experience of handling virtually every type of 

debt issue, the company was formed in December 2002 and 

is owned by our Managing Director, Paul Daine FCICM. Paul’s 

particular areas of expertise are the motor finance, insurance 

and international debt collection sectors. Services include B2B 

collections, B2C collections, international collections, absconder 

tracing, asset repossessions, status reporting and litigation 

support. 

INTERNATIONAL COLLECTIONS 

Lovetts Solicitors 

Lovetts, Bramley House, The Guildway, 

Old Portsmouth Road, Guildford, Surrey GU3 1LR 

T: +44(0)1483 457500 

E: info@lovetts.co.uk 

W: www.lovetts.co.uk 

Lovetts has been recovering debts for 30 years! When you 

want the right expertise to recover overdue debts why not use a 

specialist? Lovetts’ only line of business is the recovery of 

business debts and any resulting commercial litigation. 

We provide: 

• Letters Before Action, prompting positive outcomes in more 

than 80% of cases • Overseas Pre-litigation collections with 

multi-lingual capabilities • 24/7 access to our online debt 

management system ‘CaseManager’ 

Don’t just take our word for it, here’s recent customer feedback: 

“...All our service expectations have been exceeded...” 

“...The online system is particularly useful and is extremely easy 

to use... “...Lovetts has a recognisable brand that generates 

successful results...” 

Court Enforcement Services 

Wayne Whitford Director – Business Development 

M: 07834 748 183 

T: 01992 663 399 

E: info@courtenforcementservices.co.uk 

W: www.courtenforcementservices.co.uk 

We are a new Court Enforcement company that has over 100 years’ 

experience, of helping credit professionals to enhance both data and 

collection performance. 

Court Enforcement Services provides faster resolution of unpaid 

County Court Judgments (CCJs) over £600 with our free transfer 

up service to High Court Enforcement. We offer tailored solutions for 

Businesses, DCA’s, Debt Purchasers, Solicitors and Utilities. 

As owners of the company we lead and manage all aspects of 

the services that are provided on your behalf. Court Enforcement 

Services brings a fresh, modern and above all personal customerfocussed 

approach to High Court and Civil Court Enforcement. 

CREDIT INFORMATION 

M.A.H. INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION 

Breitenweg 6, 6370 Stans, Switzerland 

Ms. Melina Schuler – Business Development Manager 

T: ++41 41 618 30 54 

F: ++41 41 620 90 26 

E: m.schuler@mah-international.com 

W: www.mah-international.com 

M.A.H. is a global leader in Export Debt Collection & Trade 

Dispute Resolution Services. Our head office is located 

in Stans, our group law office in Zurich. We specialise in 

resolving cross-border cases swiftly and amicably (99 

percent of our cases are settled out of court). 

We have recovered payments from 112 countries on all five 

continents for exporters and other B2B customers of all sizes 

in all industries. We rank as first choice among international 

export companies, export credit insurers, and governmental 

organisations. 

Our mission is to ensure that all creditors receive full payment 

for products or services sold out of the UK without expensive, 

stressful, and lengthy litigation. 

Contact us to benefit from our personalised, full-package, 

No Collection – No Fee services, provided by our qualified 

multilingual global negotiators, collection attorneys, and 

affiliate local partner law firms in 65 countries. 

COLLECTIONS (LEGAL) 

Blaser Mills LLP 

Head Office: Park House, 31 London Road, 

High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, HP11 1BZ 

T: 01494 478660/478661 

E: Jackie Ray jar@blasermills.co.uk or Gary Braathen 

gpb@blasermills.co.uk 

W: www.blasermills.co.uk 

Established in 1888, leading multi-disciplinary law firm Blaser 

Mills specialises in services for businesses and individuals. 

The Firm has particular expertise in Dispute Resolution and 

Debt Recovery working with experienced credit managers and 

finance directors providing solutions to both contested and 

uncontested claims. 

Blaser Mills provides an experienced team including CICM 

qualified legal representatives and the Firm is cited in the 

Legal 500 law directory based on quality of work and strong 

client feedback. 

Offices in Aylesbury, London (Central), London (Harrow), Old 

Amersham, Rickmansworth, Staines-on-Thames 

CONSULTANCY 

Company Watch 

Centurion House, 37 Jewry Street, LONDON. EC3N 2ER 

T: +44 (0)20 7043 3300 

E: info@companywatch.net 

W: www.companywatch.net 

What would happen if one of your key customers failed? Do 

you rely on company information that is up to 18 months’ old? 

Company Watch provides a credit management system that’s 

predicted around 90 percent of company failures. Not only 

that, our interactive system allows you to input more up-to-date 

accounts, and to stress-test company financials to generate an 

instantly updated analysis of a company’s financial health. With 

a portfolio and email alert system, and a user interface showing 

5-year trends along with everything you need to know at a 

glance, Company Watch is an invaluable resource in the credit 

management process. 

Freeths Solicitors 

Third Floor St James’ Building, 

61-95 Oxford Street, M1 6FQ 

T: +44(0)845 634 2540 

F: +44(0)845 634 2541 

E: emma.emery@freeths.co.uk 

W: www.freeths.co.uk 

Freeths is one of the UK’s leading regional law firms with 

10 offices across the UK. We have a specialist team that 

advises on book debt collection and asset recovery in 

insolvency situations and everything in between. We believe our 

role is not just to collect your debts but also to increase your 

recoveries by working smarter. We have a range of flexible 

funding options to suit businesses of any size and advise on 

all matters from debt recovery and retention of title to disputes 

about the quality of goods and services. For undisputed claims 

we can offer low fixed rates or ‘no win no fee’ and we work fast 

taking the first steps in recovering your debt the same day. We 

are very proud to be the CICM’s Corporate Legal Partner and 

to be hosting the CICM Helpline providing free and quick initial 

legal advice to CICM members. 

Business Change Partners Ltd 

The Birches, 5 Moat Farm Close, Greenfield, 

Bedfordshire, MK45 5DP 

T: +44(0)152 572 0226. 

E: enquiries@businesschangepartners.com 

W: www.businesschangepartners.com 

Business Change Partners is a small independent consulting firm 

of experienced operational and consulting professionals. We assist 

clients in the areas of leadership, change, operational management, 

organisation design and business process improvement with 

functional expertise in Billing, Credit Management, Revenue 

Assurance and IT systems implementations. Our international 

experience includes telecommunications, utilities, oil and gas, 

manufacturing, publishing and financial services, in the business-tobusiness 

and business-to-consumer markets. We deliver pragmatic 

solutions and significant improvements to business processes, 

including cash collections, delivering millions of pounds of benefit 

for our clients. We are also proud to manage CICMQ on behalf of 

and under the supervision of the CICM. 

CoCredo Limited 

Missenden Abbey, Great Missenden, Bucks, HP16 0BD 

T: 01494 790 600 

E: helpdesk@cocredo.com 

W: www.cocredo.co.uk 

CoCredo were proud winners at the CICM British Credit Awards 

for ‘Credit Information Provider of the Year 2014.’ We provide 

live online company credit reports and related business 

information within the UK and overseas. We have direct 

feeds from Dun & Bradstreet, Companies House and other 

premium providers. We provide business information on over 

228 million companies across 240 countries. Our information 

is updated over 500,000 times per day and we have some 

excellent tracking mechanisms which provide proactive 

daily monitoring of changes in the global information 

on record. We can offer a wealth of additional services 

including D.N.A portfolio management, CoData marketing 

information, Consumer and Director Searches. We pride 

ourselves in delivering outstanding customer service 

offering you unrivalled support and analysis to protect your 

business. 



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CREDIT INFORMATION 

CREDIT INSURANCE 

Experian 

The Sir John Peace Building, 

Experian Way, 

NG2 Business Park, 

Nottingham 

NG80 1ZZ 

T: 0844 481 9920 

E: Business.Information@uk.experian.com 

W: experian.co.uk/businessiq 

Managing commercial credit can be a real challenge. That’s 

why we’ve created a business management system called 

BusinessIQ – an advanced web portal that meets all your 

credit risk assessment, customer management and collection 

needs in one easy-to-use integrated platform. 

Powered by our intuitive business information – blending 

business, director, consumer and payment performance data, 

BusinessIQ offers a more informed solution for today's credit 

risk challenges. It makes credit management operations far 

more sophisticated without adding complexity. 

EFCIS Limited t/as ICBA UK 

Specialist Trade Credit Insurance Broker 

The Office, Mill House Farm, 

Mill Street, Hastingwood, 

Essex, CM17 9JF 

T: 01279 437662 

E: amoylan@efcis.com 

W: www.efcis.com 

EFCIS Limited - Trade Credit Insurance, Debt Collection, 

Dispute Resolution and Legal action for small/medium & 

multinational businesses. EFCIS secures limits for clients 

where the financials alone do not support the full limit. We are 

tenacious when negotiating settlement of claims, securing full 

payment for claims and proactively working with our clients in 

claims avoidance. We are the industry’s only Broker to develop 

policy compliance software to ensure client’s maximum benefit 

and protection from the policy. We believe that a well-managed 

ledger supports business growth within increased profit and an 

improved return on investment. 

Credica Ltd 

Building 168, Maxell Avenue, Harwell Oxford, Oxon. OX11 0QT 

T: 01235 856400 

E: info@credica.co.uk 

W: www.credica.co.uk 

Our highly configurable and extremely cost effective Collections 

and Query Management System has been designed with 3 goals 

in mind: 

• To improve your cashflow 

• To reduce your cost to collect 

• To provide meaningful analysis of your business 

Evolving over 15 years and driven by the input of 1000s of 

Credit Professionals across the UK and Europe, our system is 

successfully providing significant and measurable benefits for our 

diverse portfolio of clients. 

We would love to hear from you if you feel you would benefit from 

our ‘no nonsense’ and human approach to computer software. 

Creditsafe Business Solutions 

Bryn House, Caerphilly Business Park, Van Rd, 

Caerphilly, CF83 3GG 

T: 0292 088 6500. 

E: ukinfo@creditsafeuk.com 

W: www.creditsafeuk.com 

Creditsafe is Europe’s most used supplier of credit & 

business intelligence. Creditsafe have helped over 60,000 

customers across Europe and the USA with a range of 

products which includes our UK, European and International 

Company Credit Reports, which reach over 129 countries 

and 90m companies; customer and supplier Risk Tracker and 

our 3D Ledger product which has captured over 35 million 

Trade Payment Data Experiences since its launch in 2012. 

All of which will help companies manage their exposure to 

risk, make informed decisions in relation to credit limits whilst 

looking at how you can identify gaps within your sales ledger 

to prioritise collections and leverage sales. 

Top Service Ltd 

2&3 Regents Court, Farmoor Lane, Redditch, 

Worcestershire, B98 0SD 

T: 0152 750 3990. 

E: enquiries@top-service.co.uk 

W: www.top-service.co.uk 

Top Service is the only credit reference and debt recovery 

agency to specialise in the UK construction sector. Top 

Service customers benefit from sector specific information, 

detailed payment history intelligence and realtime trade 

references in addition to standard credit information. 

There are currently 3,000 construction sector companies 

subscribing to the service, ranging from multi-national 

organisations to small family firms. The company prides 

itself on high levels of customer service and does not tie 

its customers into restrictive contracts. Top Service offers 

a 25% discount to all CICM Members as well as four free 

credit checks of your choice. 

Arthur J. Gallagher (GB) 

Newater House, Eleven Newhall Street 

Birmingham. B3 3NY 

T: 0121 606 0660 

W: www.ajginternational.com 

With the risk of default by customers still a major threat to 

UK companies there has never been a better time to consider 

trade credit insurance. Arthur J. Gallagher ABI award winning 

specialist trade credit team recognises the unique nature 

of the credit insurance market. Our team of experienced 

professionals deal with a wide range of businesses, from 

SME to large corporate and global risks. Please contact 

us to discuss how a specifically tailored trade credit 

solution can benefit your business. 

CREDIT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE 

Co-pilot Limited 

73 Flask Walk, London, NW3 1ET 

T: +44(0) 20 7813 2182 

E: info@co-pilot.co.uk 

W: www.co-pilot.co.uk 

Credit Managers who manage large or multiple ledgers have 

come to realise that they need to use specialist software to 

achieve or maintain performance improvement – be that risk, 

collections or both. 

For many Credit Managers a key question is where to start. 

How do you examine and evaluate the options? How and 

when do you start the budgeting process? What are the 

steps? 

Co-pilot has advised on credit management software for a 

number of years. We have good knowledge of the available 

solutions, what’s good, how they work and what type of 

solution best fits given situations. We combine this with 

considerable experience of credit management Best Practice 

so that you can pull everything together into one place and 

achieve a flexible and sustainable position going forward. 

We work with you through a structured evaluation process 

which is designed to enable you to have a clear view of 

what you can achieve going forward, what is practicable, 

the business case implications, the preferred supplier(s) and 

what the implementation process would sensibly look like (in 

our opinion, there is no such thing as “Plug and play”). 

Prof. Schumann GmbH 

innovative information systems 

Weender Landstr. 23, 37130 Göttingen, Germany 

T: +49 551 38315 0 F: +49 551 38315 20 

E: info@prof-schumann.de W: www.prof-schumann.de 

Our Credit Application Manager (CAM) is a leading credit 

risk management solution for major corporations, as well as 

insurance, factoring and leasing companies. In their daily work, 

CAM allows credit and sales managers to call up all the available 

information about a customer or risk in a few seconds for decision 

support: real-time data from wherever they are. CAM keeps an 

eye on customers whose payment behaviour stands out or who 

have overdue invoices! CAM provides an up-to-date forecast 

of customers’ payments. Additionally, CAM has automated 

interfaces for connecting to leading suppliers of company credit 

data, payment record pools and commercial credit insurers. The 

system is characterised by its great flexibility. We have years 

of experience in consulting and software support for accounts 

receivable management. 

STA International 

3rd Floor, Colman House, King Street, Maidstone, ME14 1DN 

T: +44(0)844 324 0660. 

E: enquiries@staonline.com 

W: http://www.stainternational.com 

Getting Business Paid 

STA is an award winning B2B and B2C debt collection, receivables 

management and tracing supplier. ISO9001 quality accredited, 

and with the CSAs Collector Accreditation Initiative, duty-of-care 

is as important to us as it is to you. In the past 12 months we’ve 

collected from 138 countries worldwide; with Your Debts Online 

giving you transparent access to our collection success and the 

cost of each and account placed with us for collection. Collected 

funds are remitted via BACS. We look forward to getting your 

business paid. 



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PROFESSIONAL BODIES 

Tinubu Square UK 

Holland House, 4 Bury Street, London EC3A 5AW 

T: +44 (0)207 469 2577 

E: uksales@tinubu.com 

W: www.tinubu.com 

Tinubu Square’s mission is to control and minimise trade credit 

risk. Founded in 2001, Tinubu Square has become a trusted 

source of trade credit intelligence for credit insurance leaders 

and now offers the service to corporate customers enabling 

them to assess their credit risk. Tinubu Square’s B2B Credit 

Risk Intelligence solutions – including Tinubu Risk Management 

Center (RMC) cloud-based SaaS platform, Tinubu Credit Intelligence 

service with real-time credit risk intelligence reporting 

and Tinubu Risk Analyst advisory service provide companies 

with an accurate picture of their customers’ financial health from 

sales and marketing through the entire order-to-cash cycle. 

Based in Paris, Tinubu Square has offices in London, Brussels, 

Singapore and Mumbai. 

CICMos (CICM Online Services) 

www.CICM.com 

T: 01780 722 907. 

E: training@cicm.com 

W: www.cicmos.com 

CICMOS has been designed to help busy credit managers by 

providing them with a suite of online tools to support and 

quickly develop their teams. The virtual learning centre is an 

open platform system, accessed via the website, which is 

easy to use, modular and each module is completely optional, 

which means the system can be tailored to suit specific 

requirements and time constraints. This wide ranging system 

is more than just a training tool it is easy to set up and use 

and can be accessed securely via the CICMOS website for a 

low annual subscription. 

CREDIT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE 

OnGuard 

40 Gracechurch Street, London, EC3V 0BT 

T: 0203 4403 825 

E: info@onguard.com 

W: www.onguard.co.uk 

OnGuard is a leading supplier of sophisticated software in which 

Credit, Collections, Complaints and Cash Allocation can be 

integrated in a single solution. With customers around the world 

we offer a truly global, proven, low-risk high-value proposition 

which focusses on maintaining positive customer relationships 

helping to contribute to improving your competitive edge. Our 

integrated accounts receivables solution enables you to achieve 

faster payment of your invoices plus the benefits of improved 

insights into customer behaviour and valuable time savings. This 

not only results in process optimisation, cost savings, a lower 

DSO and reduced write-offs but contributes to a stronger, 

positive relationship with your valued customers. See more at 

www.onguard.co.uk. 

Safe Computing Limited 

20, Freeschool Lane, Leicester, LE1 4FY 

T: 0844 583 2134 

E: info@safecomputing.co.uk 

W: www.safe-creditcontrol.co.uk 

Designed to manage your customer credit accounts effectively, 

Safe credit control enables your credit management team to: 

• improve cash flow 

• reduce debtor days 

• increase customer service 

• cut the cost of cash collection 

• eliminate manual processes 

• speed up the query resolution process 

Our unique approach is centred on changing the perception of 

the credit control function, from a series of reactive processes 

to proactive ones. Credit controllers are traditionally regarded 

as an essential element in business, to chase late payments 

and respond to customer queries. Safe credit control has 

taken the concepts of customer relationship management 

(CRM) and applied it to the credit control function, enabling 

a softer, service orientated team of customer service 

representatives. 

Data Interconnect Ltd 

Unit 7, Radcot Estate, 7 Park Rd, Faringdon, 

Oxfordshire. SN7 7BP 

T: +44 (0) 1367 245777 

F: +44 (0) 1367 240011 

E: sales@datainterconnect.co.uk 

W: www.datainterconnect.com 

Data Interconnect provides integrated e-billing and collection 

solutions via its document delivery web portal, WebSend. 

By providing improved Customer Experience and Customer 

Satisfaction, with enhanced levels of communication between 

both parties, we can substantially speed up your collection 

processes. 

SIDETRADE 

Sidetrade UK: Amadeus House, Floral Street, Covent 

Garden, London WC2E 9DP 

T: +44 203 608 9850 

E: Samantha@sidetrade.com 

W: wwwsidetrade.co.uk 

Sidetrade offers companies the opportunity to digitise the 

management of their financial relationships with customers. 

Sidetrade's market-leading solutions, complementary to ERPs, 

meet the challenges of securing what is often a company's 

largest asset, its accounts receivable, by reducing late payments 

and controlling customer risk. With sales in 65 countries and 34 

million invoices managed annually, the Group enables 69,000 

users from companies of all sizes and all sectors to collaborate 

via its cloud solution and accelerate cash-flow generation. 

FINANCIAL PR 

Gravity London 

Floor 6/7, Gravity London, 69 Wilson St, London, EC21 2BB 

T: +44(0)207 330 8888. 

E: sfeast@gravitylondon.com 

W: www.gravitylondon.com 

Gravity is an award winning full service PR and advertising 

business that is regularly benchmarked as being one of the best 

in its field. It has a particular expertise in the credit sector, building 

long-term relationships with some of the industry’s best-known 

brands working on often challenging briefs. As the partner 

agency for the Credit Services Association (CSA) for the past 13 

years, and the Chartered Institute of Credit Management since 

2006, it understands the key issues affecting the credit industry 

and what works and what doesn’t in supporting its clients in the 

media and beyond. 

Chartered Institute of 

Credit Management (CICM) 

The Water Mill, Station Road, South Luffenham, 

OAKHAM, LE15 8NB 

T: 01780 722910 E: info@cicm.com 

W: wwwcicm.com 

The Chartered Institute of Credit Management (CICM) is Europe’s 

largest credit management organisation. The trusted leader 

in expertise for all credit matters, it represents the profession 

across trade, consumer, and export credit, and all credit-related 

services. Formed over 70 years ago, it is the only such organisation 

accredited by Ofqual and it offers a comprehensive 

range of services and bespoke solutions for the credit professional 

(www.cicm.com) as well as services and advice for the 

wider business community (www.creditmanagement.org.uk). 

RECRUITMENT 

Hays Credit Management 

107 Cheapside, London, EC2V 6DN 

T: 07834 260029 

E: karen.young@hays.com 

W: www.hays.co.uk/creditcontrol 

Hays Credit Management is working in partnership with the CICM 

and specialise in placing experts into credit control jobs and 

credit management jobs. Hays understands the demands of this 

challenging environment and the skills required to thrive within 

it. Whatever your needs, we have temporary, permanent and 

contract based opportunities to find your ideal role. Our candidate 

registration process is unrivalled, including face-to-face screening 

interviews and a credit control skills test developed exclusively 

for Hays by the CICM. We offer CICM members a priority service 

and can provide advice across a wide spectrum of job search and 

recruitment issues. 

PORTFOLIO 


Portfolio Credit Control 

Portfolio Credit Control, New Liverpool House, 

15 Eldon Street, London, EC2M 7LD 

T: 0207 650 3199 

E: recruitment@portfoliocreditcontrol.com 

W: www.portfoliocreditcontrol.com 

Portfolio Credit Control, solely specialises in the recruitment of 

permanent, temporary and contract Credit Control, Accounts 

Receivable and Collections staff. Part of an award winning 

recruiter we speak to and meet credit controllers all day everyday 

understanding their skills and backgrounds to provide you with tried 

and tested credit control professionals. We have achieved enormous 

growth because we offer a uniquely specialist approach to our 

clients, with a commitment to service delivery that exceeds your 

expectations every single time. 



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RECRUITMENT 

Jobs in Credit 

Foxhall Business Centre, Foxhall Road, 

Nottingham, NG7 6LH 

T: 0207 316 9533 

E: info@jobsincredit.com 

Established in 2004, jobsincredit.com is the only UK job board 

dedicated to the credit and collections industry. The site attracts 

over 30,000 monthly visits, and advertises over 1,000 roles from 

a broad mix of employers and recruiters. For candidates our 

service is free of charge, and offers an easy way of searching 

for and securing your next role. For employers jobsincredit.com 

offers the most cost effective recruitment method, no matter the 

seniority. Many leading employers are clients, including Barclays, 

RBS, Deloitte, Centrica Barclaycard. For more information about 

advertising your vacancy, please visit www.jobsincredit.com 

ANTI MONEY LAUNDERING 

SmartSearch 

Station Court, Station Road, Guiseley, Leeds, LS20 8EY 

T: 0113 238 7660 

F: 0113 238 7669 

E: info@smartsearchuk.com 

W: www.smartsearchuk.com 

SmartSearch is the first system to bring together Business 

and Individual AML Verification on a single platform. Our data 

providers Experian and Dow Jones provide SmartSearch 

access to over one billion data items enabling AML 

verification in all Markets. AML verification data subjects are 

automatically screened against the latest Sanction, PEP and 

SIP Lists. Ongoing monitoring for the duration of your contract 

is provided at no extra cost. Efficient processes; less than 3 

minutes to execute a business AML check and a sub 60 second 

individual check. Why not let your Compliance Team test drive 

SmartSearch for 14 days free of charge? (Ref:CM101) 

ATTENTION PRODUCT 

AND SERVICE PROVIDERS 

You can connect with them all now by 

having a listing in CreditWho. 

For just £1,247 + VAT per annum: 

- your business will be listed in Credit 

Management magazine, which goes out to 

all our members and subscribers and has an 

estimated readership of over 25,000 

To book your listing in CreditWho contact 

Anthony Cave on 020 3603 7934 

For even greater exposure to 

our membership and a closer 

association with CICM, why not 

enquire about becoming a Corporate 

Partner. To find out more contact 

Peter Collinson (07584 993548). 

CICM Corporate Partners now get 

CreditWho included. 

THE 

TURNER 

LECTURE 

THE INNER TEMPLE, 

LONDON EC4. 

FRIDAY 9 OCTOBER 2015 

17:30 - 20:00 

FREE TO 

MEMBERS 

You are invited to a lecture on the subject of “Unfair Relationships” 

undertaken by two barristers from Henderson Chambers 

followed by a talk from past President of the CICM, professor 

Robert Turner. 

Additionally, you are also invited to the Parliament Chamber for 

an after event meal, ticket prices for the meal are £90+VAT. 

To book your place; please email: 

Richard Seadon at richards@tgbaynes.com 

CPD 

3 






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would like a copy, please send a letter requesting this 

information together with a cheque for £10 payable to : 

The Chartered Institute of Credit Management to: 

Data Controller, CICM, The Water Mill, Station Road, 

South Luffenham, OAKHAM, LE15 8NB. 

CREDITMAN by MIKE FLANNAGAN 

ACROSS : 

1. Ottoman title 

6. Physiques 

10. Bearing 

14. Hurt 

15. Diva's solo 

16. Cocoyam 

17. Booming 

19. Fastens 

20. Detects 

21. G 

22. "Where the heart is" 

23. Fit out again 

25. Scintillas 

26. F F F F 

30. Have in mind 

32. Banister 

35. Invigorate 

DOWN : 

1. Taps 

2. Pang 

3. Cold-shoulder 

4. Female chickens 

5. Viper 

6. Tavern 

7. Beginning 

8. Kitchen set 

9. Wise one 

10. Organized 

11. Dimwit 

12. Swelling under the skin 

13. Snouts 

18. East southeast 

24. A tree fruit 

25. Arm of the sea 

26. At one time (archaic) 

27. Destiny 

28. Strong and sure 

39. Big step 

40. Decipher 

41. Poster color 

43. Demesnes 

44. Extreme cruelty 

46. Gave temporarily 

47. Religious splinter groups 

50. Property claims 

53. End ___ 

54. Dowel 

55. Narcotic 

60. Boorish 

61. Decorative 

63. Indian music 

64. Give temporarily 

65. Coral island 

66. Anagram of "Lyme" 

67. Unique 

68. Hemp cords 

29. Backwash 

31. Terminates 

33. Notions 

34. Egghead 

36. Cast a ballot 

37. Biblical garden 

38. Where a bird lives 

42. Control surface on a plane 

43. An uncle 

45. Indicate 

47. Pungent Indian dish 

48. Normal 

49. Shelf 

51. French for "Name" 

52. Lance 

54. Game on horseback 

56. Within 

57. At the peak of 

58. Story 

59. L L L L 

62. One or more 

THERE WILL BE THREE PRIZES 

OF £20 EACH FOR THE FIRST THREE 

NAMES DRAWN 

CROSSWORD SOLUTION 32 

SEPTEMBER CROSSWORD 

WINNERS ARE : 

Jacqueline Baker MCICM 

Peter McDonald MCICM(Grad) 

F Carroll MCICM 

For the chance of winning £20, 

forward your completed solution to: 

Art Editor, Andrew Morris, 

Chartered Institute of Credit Management, 

The Water Mill, Station Road, South 

Luffenham, OAKHAM, LE15 8NB 

or email: andrew.morris@cicm.com 

DON’T ALLOW LONG-STANDING 

DEBTS AFFECT YOUR BUSINESS 

For a detailed discussion on how we can help your business or for a quotation for any of our services 

please do not hesitate to contact: Paul Daine FCICM, MIoD, Managing Director 

Office 3, Caidan House Business Centre, Canal Road, Timperley, Altrincham, Cheshire, WA14 1TD 

F: 0333 121 3843 E: enquries@premiumcollections.co.uk W: www.premiumcollections.co.uk 

For all your credit management requirements Premium 

Collections Limited have the solution. Staffed by 

professionals with over 50 years combined experience. 

Call: 0161 962 4695 



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201510 CM October

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