Australian online invoice trading platform InvoiceX today announced the publication of its loan book, containing tons of data on more than $6.5 million of invoice trades from November 20th 2014 – when the platform launched – to 31 December 2015. According to the data, the company is on track to trade over $50 million worth of invoices in 2016.
Founded by Dermot Crean and Steve Yannarakis, the company is strongly placed to help small and medium enterprises (regardless of their business sector) to deal with working capital pressures. Its primary product – the Match Maker Trading Platform – rapidly matches investors with businesses, optimising the deal for both parties. InvoiceX assures the total absence of set-up fees and a straightforward application process. The company aims to provide a cash advance – up to 85% of the Face Value of an invoice – within 24 hours.
Dermot Crean, co-founder and director of InvoiceX, commented:
“Greater transparency is key to taking P2P lending mainstream, both for businesses and consumer loans. It is our hope that release of this data will prompt other P2P lenders to take the same action. We want to ensure that all business owners in Australia who are eager to grow have access to transparent and fair finance which puts the rights of borrowers at the centre of the lending process.”
Since inception, InvoiceX has facilitated 201 trades for SMEs with an average trade face value of $33,098, an average discount fee of 1.2 per cent per calendar month and an average settlement period of 35 days. The platform is keen on highlighting the differences between its business model and a normal factoring provider. Traditional factoring involves long lock-in periods, much higher costs and the losing of control of sales ledgers and collections. Conversely, InvoiceX’s product is totally confidential, with no lock-ins and a good deal of flexibility.
According to Dermot, the release of this data is indicative of a maturing P2P lending market in Australia. He said:
“The public release of this lending data will allow businesses to make easy comparisons between P2P lenders, and also directly with traditional finance options such as term loans and mortgages. […] Greater transparency is key to taking P2P lending mainstream, both for businesses and consumer loans. It is our hope that release of this data will prompt other P2P lenders to take the same action.”
It’s widely acknowledged that transparency is a key pillar of the Alternative Finance Space – essential to ensuring the sustainable growth of the asset class and to demonstrating that alternative finance platforms are behaving responsibly.
InvoiceX claims to be the first P2P Australasian platform to publish its loan book. “It's great to be the first to do this ever in Australian SME finance,” said Dermot. RateSetter Australia, following in the footsteps of its UK-based progenitor, uploaded its complete loan book online last October – although this resource is updated on a quarterly basis. On a global scale, many players have already disclosed their data, including the likes of Zopa,Funding Circle,RateSetter and MarketInvoice in the UK.
Aside from increasing the public’s opinion of the sector, data is critical also from a practical perspective, allowing for the construction of indices, such as the The Liberum AltFi Returns Index (LARI), which will likely come to form an essential component in the maturation of the sector.
AltFi Data today added an Australasian section to its Resources page, providing a link to the InvoiceX loan book, which is accessible here. We suspect that InvoiceX may have company in the Australasian section before long.
