Over the course of the last few months we have been carefully expanding our international collections service to enable us to provide SMEs with a viable alternative to faceless credit insurance giants. We have built up a team of largely foreign nationals to help exporters collect debts from companies overseas, and have expanded the service to cover all aspects of the order to cash cycle.
Our commercial experience of business cultures around the world gives also us a key advantage over many debt collecting insurance companies. Previously SMEs would have had to rely on huge multinationals like Euler Hermes, Atradius and Coface – a one size fits all service generating large bills in the process. This service doesn't meet the needs of the SME market where often debt values are smaller.
As more SMEs look to export, they have to deal with language barriers and more importantly misunderstandings about business cultures in other countries. This means they can have problems and delays, not just with getting paid on time, but through the whole order to cash cycle.
Most collection agencies don’t have the capability to handle international collections, which in the past left global credit insurance companies as the only alternative.
We have also linked up with a network of international legal firms, meaning clients don’t have to source help themselves. And unlike many lawyers in the cash flow management field, they operate on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis for international debt recovery work.
No win no fee international legal assistance is long overdue in our field - it makes commercial sense for SMEs and also ensures clients will not fall foul of specific countries’ laws on debt collection.