1. Financing is always associated with risks. This is all the more true in dynamic times. And we are currently dealing with a relatively large number of changes and will probably continue to do so in the future. How can Riskfactor help here in the corporate sector?

Ahmed Amin (Lenvi): Riskfactor was designed to help factoring companies to monitor the performance of their portfolio and identify early warning signs of risk whether that be fraud or potential bad debt. We do this by analysing the invoicing and payment behaviour of the lender’s sellers and buyers on a daily basis.

In these dynamic times this is even more important and ensures that lenders have the best possible risk controls. There is always a concern that in difficult economic conditions sellers and buyers will experience problems, so it is vital to identify this as quickly as possible and act on the scenario to protect a lender’s exposure.

All factoring companies will have risk controls in place, but Riskfactor helps them to do this by automation and in a cost-efficient manner to make sure they are focusing on the problem sellers / buyers.

This task can be more difficult for factoring companies if they are working in the SME space where they must manage a large number of smaller clients and monitor the trends across these facilities. Having a best-in-class portfolio monitoring solution with 25+ years of experience helps factoring companies to manage their portfolio risk in a cost-efficient way.

2. The strategic view of risks is becoming increasingly important, as is cooperation and exchange with other tools. Ultimately, the aim is to make (even) better decisions on the basis of reporting. What possibilities does Riskfactor offer here?

Ahmed Amin (Lenvi): Riskfactor is well positioned here as we integrate with a lender’s core Factoring system – which is what we have done with efcom. This cooperation is vital as it allows us to take accurate timely data (such as invoicing, buyer payment and seller funding movements) on a daily basis, to analyse the portfolio and provide trends and metrics for better decisions.

This exchange of information ensures that factoring companies can easily access the relevant information to make informed decisions around the operation of the Factoring facility and support of their seller.

Riskfactor has an advanced in-built reporting capability ensuring risk teams have a strategic view of the risks within their portfolio and these can be shared amongst colleagues and senior management in an automated and flexible manner.

3. Regulation also plays an important role in risk management. The supervision of activities in the banking and finance sector will probably continue to increase, albeit to varying degrees from region to region. How do you see this development, also with regard to the use of risk management tools?

I agree that regulation will continue to increase and we have been exploring areas where we can help factoring companies. For example, we are currently looking at NDOD and calculation/monitoring of Risk Weighted Assets, in line with the CRR3 mandate, as areas where risk management tools can help regulated lenders; whether it is to create specific metrics, enhance on-going monitoring and provide key reporting capabilities.

We see this as an obvious extension of Riskfactor to help clients with their compliance requirements.

4. Finally, some very pragmatic questions: How can Riskfactor be connected to existing banking systems? What (technical) requirements need to be met? And: Where and by whom can Riskfactor be used?

Riskfactor is traditionally connected to a lender’s core factoring platform which is why we are excited by the partnership with efcom. The main technical requirements are that data can be shared in the right format in a secure manner – and we have already built this integration with efcom…..so the hard work is done and deployment can be completed in a matter of months.

The next step is to identify lenders that would benefit from Riskfactor. The general rule is that anyone with a portfolio of 80+ clients will see significant value from our solution and we can build a business case around how we can reduce the cost of managing their sellers, buyers and improving risk controls.