Peter Mulroy, secretary general of Factors Chain International, a global network of factoring companies, has revealed this year’s preliminary data to convention attendees, with global factoring volumes reaching the highest figure ever recorded.
According to these statistics, the global factoring market reached a volume of EUR 2,311 billion in 2014, growing a moderate 3.6% from the EUR 2,230 billion recorded in 2013, with Europe and Africa being the fastest growing regional markets. However, the growth recorded in 2014 is below the annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11% for the last 20 years. This is mainly due to a strong decline in the factoring volume in Asia, the second biggest factoring market in the world.
FCI has also pointed out that domestic factoring accounted for EUR 1,853 billion or 80% of the total in 2014, while international factoring represented 20% of the total market, amounting to EUR 458 billion. Despite the continuous challenges in the global economy, international cross-border factoring increased by 14% and remained the driver of future factoring growth.
Europe, the largest factoring market worldwide, was the strongest growing region in 2014 as the factoring volume increased by 9.8% to EUR 1,487 billion (2013: EUR 1,354 billion). This is the highest growth rate for the European market since 2011, Mulroy adds. The growth has mainly been driven by the strategic emphasis towards factoring by the commercial banking sector which controls approximately 90% of Europe’s factoring volume. In particular, the UK, France, Germany and Italy remain the largest factoring markets in Europe and have all grown in 2014. Within the region, the fastest growing markets were: Lithuania (+ 101% to EUR 5.55 billion), Turkey (+29% to EUR 41.23 billion), Switzerland (+24% to EUR 3.83 billion) and the UK (+22% to EUR 376.10 billion).
The statistics also notes that the Americas (+ 2% to EUR 196 billion) and Africa (+ 8.6% to EUR 25 billion) also grew as regions. The US factoring market showed a particularly strong increase by 16.6% from last year to EUR 97.67 billion. Brazil remained the second largest market in the Americas with a volume of EUR 31.78 billion (+0.7%). The third and fourth largest factoring markets in the region, Mexico (- 9.2% to EUR 25.49 billion) and Chile (- 45% to EUR 14.03 billion), both saw a decline in the factoring volume. In Africa, Morocco was the strongest performer as the local factoring market grew by 52% to EUR 4.2 billion.
Finally, FCI has highlighted that the Asian region accounts for more than half of the total cross-border factoring volume. But in strong contrast to the global trend, the factoring market in the region shrank by 5.6%. This is the first time since the financial crisis that the factoring volume in Asia declined. The second largest factoring market globally now has a volume of EUR 603 billion; China remains the strongest market in the region, with a volume of EUR 388.62 billion – the country’s share of the Asian factoring market is 64%. China managed to counter the trend in Asia as the local market grew by 2.8%. In contrast, Japan (-33.9% to EUR 51.07 billion) and Taiwan (-31.4% to EUR 50.05 billion) experienced a clear reduction in volume in 2014.
The FCI Global Factoring Statistics present on an annual basis the key factoring data around the world. They cover domestic and cross-border factoring volume collected from over 270 members in 73 countries.
While the figures revealed at RFIx 2015 were preliminary, the full statistics will be made available by FCI in the coming weeks.
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