Thirteen May Be Lucky Afterall: Impressions From the 13th International Factoring Congress

The 13th International Factoring Congress, one of the most important events not only for the Factoring Industry, but the entire Financial Industry in Poland, was held on September 21. 

As always, the most important aspects of factoring service providers were discussed. Interesting topics were raised, we saw what the pandemic taught us and what may await us in the future – I invite you to a brief summary.

Traditionally, at the beginning of the congress, the previous year of 2021 was summed up. The post-pandemic year showed what has been known for some time – crises are not intimidating to factoring, as evidenced by more than 13% growth in turnover worldwide, compared to 2020. It is noteworthy that the top 8 countries in terms of the amount of turnover in Europe account for as much as 83.4% of it Here Poland ranks 8th with a turnover of EUR 78.9 billion.

Source: Polish Factor’s Association 

It is certainly gratifying to see that the ratio between full and limited factoring has been maintained at 53% to 47% for factoring with risk assumption. This only confirms the fact that customer awareness is growing, allowing customers to sleep soundly without worrying about the insolvency of their contractors. More data can be found at faktoring.pl.

The next presentation was titled "Winter Is Coming. Will It Plunge the Economy? The Economic Perspectives of the Polish and German Economies".

Here the authors tried to curb a little the enthusiasm that 2021 brought, and presented perspectives for the end of 2022 and for 2023. Quite a bit of data was shown, including an increase in payment delays, or restructurings and bankruptcies of companies due not only to the effects of the pandemic, but also to rising energy prices. 

One of the stars of the event was Prof. Witold M. Orłowski, who presented the economic outlook for Poland. Here, of course, there was no shortage of information about the availability of gas, rising inflation or Russia's attack on Ukraine. Of course, the case of dependence on gas from Russia was raised, and while Poland is not lost in this, there are countries that may face much bigger problems in the future. 

As representatives of one of the event's sponsors, Comarch, we had the opportunity to present the trends we have seen not only in factoring, but also in the approach to factoring software development – I wrote more about this in a separate entry: Trends Create the Numbers, Or the Other Way Around?

As every year, during the event the winners of the Golden Pen, i.e. undergraduate or graduate theses related to factoring, were selected. 

Interesting was the discussion "What in the Factoring Law Squeaks”, aimed at pointing out legal aspects and where the topics of KSeF (National System of e-Invoices), minimum tax, deductions or assignment notice, among others, were discussed. 

The Congress ended with a speech by Jacek Walkiewicz, who in his presentation "Full POWER in Times of Change" showed in a rather humorous way the world around us and how to cope with the problems of everyday life. 

The 13th Factoring Congress has come to an end, and one can certainly guess that the next one, which will sum up the year 2022, will be dealing with issues such as the war in Ukraine, inflation or the drastic increase in energy prices. So it promises to be just as interesting.