For Immediate Release: Tuesday 24th January 2012

MarketInvoice Moves Into International Invoice Auctions, As British Exporters and International SMEs Feel The Pressure of Tightening Credit Conditions

• MarketInvoice setting up liaison office based in Hong Kong as demand for international invoice auctioning grows
• Data reveals Hong Kong wholesale companies that export to Morrisons, Amazon, Arcadia and Homebase are turning to MarketInvoice for short term funding
• Some SMEs set to auction up to $5 million dollars through the site in 2012


As large banks retrench from trade finance and with The World Bank now predicting a global recession, new data from online invoice auction platform MarketInvoice has revealed that British exporters and international companies are now turning to invoice auctioning to solve their short term funding problems. As a direct result MarketInvoice has now moved into international invoice auctions and trade finance and is opening a liaison office in Hong Kong. MarketInvoice HK Limited will now help foreign SMEs solve their short term finance problems, as international credit conditions for SMEs tighten.

Data from the site has revealed that SMEs that deal in exporting goods and services to the likes of Europe, America, the Middle East and Japan have turned to invoice auctioning, with the site now attracting global buyers from afar afield as Russia, Singapore and Switzerland.

In 2011 several Hong Kong companies approached MarketInvoice to use its service as they export into large UK supermarkets and retailers such as Morrisons, Arcadia, Amazon and Homebase. One Hong Kong company has now auctioned over £800,000 in invoices to date and is forecast to auction between $4 – $5 million of invoices via MarketInvoice this year alone as UK retailers’ up to 45 – 90 days to settle payments. Companies in Hong Kong have also found it difficult to obtain bank loans without pledging large collateral and personal guarantees. It was against this backdrop that MarketInvoice saw an opportunity to expand and help SMEs abroad with the working capital needs for their trade links into large UK corporates.

Anil Stocker, Co-founder and Director of MarketInvoice says: “Our core offering is still very much for UK SMEs with UK customers, and with the latest official figures indicating we are now entering a new recession, we anticipate that UK SMEs will rely more heavily on invoice auctioning as banks tighten their lending criteria.

“However, we simply couldn’t ignore what our data was telling us. We regularly run auctions in Pounds, Euros and Dollars but we were finding increasingly that foreign companies, particularly several in Hong Kong who export in to large UK retailers were turning to us for help. This shows that the problems that UK SMEs are currently facing are also being faced globally. Our customers are telling us that banks in Hong Kong in particular are asking for huge guarantees to secure loans, which a lot of SMEs just can’t give. It was for these reasons that we saw an opportunity to expand our offering and set up a Hong Kong office. With a very real fear of a global recession we know that international SMEs will have as much a tough year as UK SMEs.”

At MarketInvoice, businesses are offered a flexible and competitive way to raise short-term finance with no hidden fees, onerous collateral or lengthy contracts. SMEs can obtain up to 90% of their invoices upfront from institutional investors who compete between them to provide SMEs with the lowest cost of finance. Customers tend to be service or wholesale companies with revenues between £500,000 and £20,000,000 and include both start ups and well-established businesses.

Since trading began in February 2011, MarketInvoice has reached over £4.0 million volume in total SME invoices sold across over 60 companies, with over £1 million being channelled to businesses from high net worth and institutional investors in December 2011 alone, with the site recently completing its 100th auction. To date, 100% of all invoices sold have successfully received bids.