CM July_August 2019

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NEWS IN BRIEF Financial union FINAL analysis of data collated by the EU Federation for the Factoring and Commercial Finance Industry (EUF) shows that in 2018 factoring and commercial finance volumes in the EU grew overall by 7.9 percent to €1.73 trillion, 80 percent of which was domestic business and 20 percent international. This equates to more than €240 billion of funding that is supporting around 220,000 European businesses. euf.eu.com Precision investment DORSET-based engineering company, Finetec Precision Engineering, has secured a £100,000 funding boost from invoice finance specialist, Gener8 Finance. Finetec Precision Engineering was established in 1992 to provide high quality precision components at competitive rates. It specialises in CNC Sliding Head Turning using Citizen machines, machining small turned and milled parts, with bar capacity up to 32mm diameter. The owners turned to invoice finance as a solution to free up cashflow, allowing them to accept growing orders with confidence, as well as invest in new materials and machinery. gener8finance.com Quality finish BIBBY Financial Services (BFS) has provided a £250,000 Invoice Finance facility to Thomas Loughlin (Liverpool) Ltd, a high-quality print finisher working with the UK’s finest printers and globally recognised brands including Nike, FIFA, Coca Cola and O2. The funding will also help the business alleviate cashflow challenges and allow it to consolidate its market position in the North West. BFS was introduced to Thomas Loughlin by PMD Business Finance. bibbyfinancialservices.com Asia report TRADE credit insurer Atradius has published an economic report on Asia, analysing the risks and opportunities of trading within the region. The Atradius Country Report on Asia was prepared as an intelligence tool designed to equip businesses with vital political and economic insights as well as a performance outlook across individual industries. The report analyses the main Asian economies, including China, India, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam and also features Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines. To read the Asia Country Report in full visit atradius.co.uk. atradius.co.uk CICM Essentials RECENT briefings include details of the two winners of the CICM Meritorious Service Award, the Institute’s response to the HMRC consultation ‘Protecting your taxes in Insolvency’, and three bite-sized webinars on credit and collections. CICM chooses Shoosmiths as new legal partner UK law firm Shoosmiths has been chosen by the Chartered Institute of Credit Management (CICM) as its new exclusive legal partner for 2019-20. CICM is Britain’s largest and oldest recognised body for the credit management industry, and the largest body of its kind in the world. Together with Shoosmiths, recognised market leaders in the field of recovery solutions, it will be working to help raise the profile and increase membership of the CICM the length and breadth of the UK. Paula Swain is one of three Shoosmiths partners who will be driving forward the partnership with the CICM alongside Andrew Foyle (Edinburgh) and Jason Byrne (Belfast). Paula, who leads Shoosmiths’ national B2B debt recovery team from Southampton, says that the CICM sets the standards of professionalism in the credit management industry: “The Institute is a byword for excellence, so working more closely with them makes absolute sense to us and will, I believe, be great for both our respective organisations. “Shoosmiths handles the debt recovery for some of the UK’s largest corporates so we have a shared outlook of excellence and our UK-wide office network maps exactly with CICM’s own scope of operations. We have great hopes for the tremendous synergies this represents.” Sue Chapple FCICM, CICM Director of Strategic Relationships, says she is delighted to be working with Shoosmiths as the CICM’s new legal partner: “We recognise fellow enthusiasts when we see them, and have been impressed by the energy, ambition and spark of the Shoosmiths team. For us, it’s one of those partnerships where one plus one will definitely add up to more than two.” Philip King, Chief Executive of the CICM, added his welcome: “Shoosmiths has a deserved reputation for excellence and its decision to become our exclusive legal partner will be one that will be welcomed across our membership.” Shoosmiths is a national law firm operating from a network of 13 offices, and with client companies on every part of the business growth cycle. The company is a national market leader in business-tobusiness debt recovery, providing advice and recovery solutions to companies in a wide range of industry sectors in all legal jurisdictions of the UK. Its teams work closely with credit teams to recover commercial debts as quickly and efficiently as possible; they also deliver a range of consultancy services designed to improve cash flow and to reduce cost. shoosmiths.co.uk “The Institute is a byword for excellence, so working more closely with them makes absolute sense to us and will, I believe, be great for both our respective organisations.” CIVEA to cease involvement CIVEA, the Civil Enforcement Association, will no longer review complaints on behalf of its members as part of streamlining of the process for complaining about enforcement agents (bailiffs). All complaints about enforcement agents acting on behalf of local authorities will go straight to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman for independent adjudication after local processes have been exhausted. The enforcement industry has been the subject of scrutiny by the House of Commons Justice Committee, which identified a disparity between the numbers of complaints recorded by debt advice groups and industry groups. Debt advice groups claimed that 2.2 million people had been contacted by bailiffs since 2014, who reported 850,00 cases of rules being broken. Industry figures show much lower levels of complaints. CIVEA reviews around 250 complaints each year and in a survey, 22 enforcement firms processed approximately 2,500 cases between 2014 and 2018. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman upheld just 50 complaints in the last four years where the bailiffs themselves were at fault. Separately, the civil enforcement industry is calling on the government to establish a joint committee in the House of Commons and House of Lords to review the draft Public Service Ombudsman Bill, which would provide a procedure for adjudicating on public service providers, including enforcement agents when acting on behalf of public bodies. Russell Hamblin-Boone, Chief The Recognised Standard / www.cicm.com / July/August 2019 / PAGE 8
UK Search claims ‘first’ in Open Banking Solution UK Search has claimed to be the first to adopt Open Banking technology to help customers in arrears to reach realistic debt free solutions in a timely way. With a customer’s permission UK Search can now view bank account transaction information to understand the customer’s monthly incomings and outgoings, so an informed decision can be made about what repayments will be affordable. Cliff Poole, Managing Director of UK Search, said that customers often prefer to avoid awkward conversations about their personal finances: “Many of the customers we engage with want to repay their debts, but find themselves in financially difficult circumstances. Talking about it can become embarrassing and confusing. “The Open Banking solution we have developed and introduced allows us to work with customers in a different way, to get real accurate views on both their finances and their circumstances. It becomes very NOVA APPROACH INTRUM and Tieto have extended their partnership across the Baltic region to modernise and automate credit management services for Intrum clients and customers. The deal will see Intrum deliver innovation in areas such as digitalisation, analytics, robotics and AI, through Tieto’s collection platform Nova. Now with greater synergies between its operations, and sharing resource, process and knowledge, Intrum claims it can offer a wider range of services with greater scalability. Already deployed in Sweden, Intrum has extended Nova to its businesses in Latvia and Lithuania. intrum.com in bailiff complaints Executive of CIVEA, believes the changes will streamline the process for complaints redress: “The expertise and independent adjudication of the ombudsman gives an impartial picture of the scale of any problems in our industry. Three trade associations, local authorities, the courts service, the Local Authority Civil Enforcement Forum and the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman have all recorded low levels of complaints.” Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman says that he supports any efforts to streamline the current process: “We already provide independent redress for complaints about the recovery of local taxation and parking debts by enforcement agents. Where a firm is acting on behalf of a local authority, their actions fall within quick and simple and we can agree an affordable programme of repayments.” Cliff believes that a fair outcome can be reached with most customers, often by setting an affordable and sustainable payment plan for those customers who can afford to pay something and that way helps them to get out of debt: “Open Banking gives both parties the opportunity to do this in the fairest way possible,” he adds. Likewise, he says, Income & Expenditure (I&E) cannot and should not be a substitute for intuition or human instinct: “With the help of Open Banking and the customer’s permission collectors should know instantly when an arrangement isn’t suitable, through picking up the clues in the conversation and by seeing for real the customers true position. The need to sign post free money advice or return the account to the Client is made that much easier.” uksearchlimited.com our jurisdiction. “Clear routes of redress are all the more important for people who want to raise concerns about debt issues they are facing, so we strongly believe complaints processes should be accessible, easy to understand and simple to use. We expect local authorities to ensure that they have a clear process for dealing with complaints when they contract services out to enforcement firms, as we would with any commissioned service. It’s important this system is not protracted, does not require people to go through multiple complaints processes and also ensures there is appropriate signposting – including to our service – if a person remains dissatisfied with the outcome of their complaint.” civea.co.uk See interview on page 21. >NEWS IN BRIEF Government implements new E-invoicing standard THE UK government has implemented an EU directive on electronic invoicing in public procurement through The Public Procurement (Electronic Invoices etc) Regulations 2019. A Procurement Policy Note (PPN) from the Cabinet Office said: ‘Contracting authorities and other contracting entities (utilities) are now required to receive and process supplier invoices that comply with the technical e-invoicing standard developed under the Directive.’ The requirements apply to central government with immediate effect, while local government and utilities have until 18 April 2020 to comply ‘but may voluntarily do so earlier’, said the PPN. The Directive aims to address the use of varied e-invoicing formats across the member states through the introduction of a standard. The varied formats cause unnecessary complexity and additional operating costs for businesses, public contracting bodies and contracting entities. ec.europa.eu Quay Expansion PHILLIPS & Cohen Associates, the international deceased account management specialist, is expanding its UK operations. It has renewed its existing lease on premises in Exchange Quay, Manchester, and taken an extended lease on an additional 4,200 square feet on the same site. Nick Cherry, COO, said the decision reflected the company’s desire to grow both domestically and internationally, and establish the Manchester office as a centre of excellence. phillips-cohen.co.uk End of lease PETER Thomas has stepped down from his role as executive director of the Leasing Foundation to establish a global network looking at the future of finance. He will be working with many former and current Foundation colleagues on a range of issues that are beyond equipment and asset finance. leasingfoundation.org The Recognised Standard / www.cicm.com / July/August 2019 / PAGE 9
Page 1 and 2: CREDIT MANAGEMENT CM JULY / AUGUST
Page 3 and 4: 24 FRAUD SPECIAL ADAM BERNSTEIN NIC
Page 5 and 6: 3 YEARS IN 2018 Portfolio Credit Co
Page 7: StepChange supports calls to revisi
Page 11 and 12: NEWS SPECIAL AUTHOR - Sean Feast FC
Page 13 and 14: INSOLVENCY Deemed consent IPs hold
Page 15 and 16: DO YOUKNOWTHE TRUE IDENTITY OF YOUR
Page 17 and 18: TOWN & COUNTRY INTERVIEW AUTHOR - S
Page 19 and 20: TOWN & COUNTRY INTERVIEW AUTHOR - S
Page 21 and 22: INTERVIEW THE COMPLEAT ANGLER Sean
Page 23 and 24: INTERVIEW AUTHOR - Sean Feast FCICM
Page 25 and 26: Fraud on Tap Fraudsters are targeti
Page 27 and 28: As the Winners of the Legal Team of
Page 29 and 30: Ramadan Mubarak Algeria’s not a
Page 31 and 32: OPINION AUTHOR - Angelique Assaf Fu
Page 33 and 34: www.cicm.com ‘‘ If you are seri
Page 35 and 36: COUNTRY FOCUS AUTHOR - Adam Bernste
Page 37 and 38: PAYMENT TRENDS Top Five Prompter Pa
Page 39 and 40: Are you making the most of CICM and
Page 41 and 42: The Recognised Standard / www.cicm.
Page 43 and 44: Each of our Corporate Partners is c
Page 45 and 46: CICM TURNER LECTURE 20:20 Vision Th
Page 47 and 48: EDUCATION - CREDIT AND COLLECTIONS
Page 49 and 50: Tailored Summer offer and bespoke o
Page 51 and 52: CICM MEMBER EXCLUSIVE Your CICM lap
Page 53 and 54: BE ONE CLICK AWAY FROM OUR WEBSITE
Page 55 and 56: www.cicm.com ‘‘ Since being a m
Page 57 and 58: presents
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BRANCH NEWS Honesty is the best pol
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More reasons to be a member Make co
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CREDIT CONTROLLER ESTABLISH POLICIE
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