Instant Factoring granted over 1,900 loans to small and micro-enterprises in its first year

Instant Factoring gave 1,930 grants to small companies and micro-enterprises worth EUR 4 million in the first year of activity on the factoring market in Romania. For this year, the company plans to increase customer portfolio by 300 percent and the funding volume to EUR 15 million.

Instant Factoring is the first Romanian online factoring fintech to finance mainly small local entrepreneurs, an estimated market of 511,800 micro-companies with an annual turnover of up to EUR 500,000. In the first year of operation, fintech took over 0.1 percent of this market in its active client portfolio and growth prospects for this year are tailored to the financing needs of this sector that has so far been poorly serviced.

“According to the World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC), the need for financing companies in Romania is huge, estimated at over EUR 40 billion or 26 percent of GDP, while, according to BNR, only 12,000 companies in Romania are bankable and over 30% of Romanian companies declared that access to finance is a pressing or moderately pressing problem. Financial blockage is also a major cause of stress for Romanian companies, with the average duration of billing collection being doubled over the past 10 years to nearly 120 days and the supplier loan reaching over EUR 70 billion by the end of 2017, a triple value for non-government credit. Instant Factoring has the mission to fill this funding gap by facilitating access to liquidity for small companies to develop and reach the banking sector,” said Cristian Ionescu, Instant Factoring CEO.

The company registered 3,050 billing applications, with a funding rate of 63 percent. The average value of the accepted purchase invoice was EUR 2,070, the maximum per invoice the company is financing online is EUR 100,000 at an average cost of 0.1 percent per day.

Funding requests came largely from the following areas: trade, transport, construction, restaurants and public catering, production (advertising and textiles) and medical and hospital services.

Instant Factoring targets a 300 percent increase in customer portfolio for 2019 with a grant of EUR 15 million. The current evolution of activity in the first quarter of 2019 indicates a 100 percent growth rate over the quarterly average of 2018.

Instant Factoring is the first fintech online factoring company in Romania dedicated to small companies and microenterprises, and a member of the European Finnish Innovate Finance Association, based in London. The company is an IFN (non-financial institution) registered with by BNR. With the launch of the online factoring platform www.instantfactoring.com, the company is committed to supporting the development of small companies through fast and easy financing solutions with the help of technology. Instant Factoring is the double winner of the “Startup of the Year” and “Best Fintech Startup” in 2018.