Touch Financial - Business Money February 2009

At a time when the quality of leads takes on increasing importance, Touch Financial, the new name for invoice finance’s largest online referrer, announces positive changes ahead.

The quality of online referrals is set to take a significant step forward following last month’s launch of Canary Wharf based “super broker” Touch Financial, the trading name for SFP Brokers Limited, part of insolvency and corporate recovery specialist SFP’s group of companies.

The business has been formed following the completion of a deal with the UK’s leading online insurance brokerage Xbridge, to manage its non-core division, the established and highly successful online referrer Xbridge Invoice Finance.

Trading as Touch Financial, the new broker, with its combined resources, can now be considered as the largest volume introducer of internet receivables finance referrals, generating over 500 leads each month across the whole SME marketplace.

The business is led by experienced invoice finance and commercial brokerage specialist Mark Jefferson, who has been heading up his own successful brokerage for the past seven years, and Simon Carter, who has held top level commercial and operational positions within invoice finance for over two decades. The organisation will be giving strong focus to improving the quality of new business leads currently being offered to funders by competing brokers.

Mark, who has worked for clearing bank finance house subsidiaries as well as independent brokers in the City, explained: “Touch Financial is building and maintaining relationships with asset- based lenders by providing qualified lead flow, as well as managing both client and lender expectations throughout the whole financing process."

“We are an independent broker that ensures our clients are introduced to the lender, or lenders, which are considered to be relevant to their business requirements. We have access on their behalf to a wide range of lenders, from multinational banking organisations through to specialist independent boutique funders.”

Whilst Touch Financial is likely to be the largest online volume introducer of new business referrals for invoice finance, it is also establishing service level agreements with lenders to ensure that the best possible turnaround times and feedback are generated for both lender and client.

Simon Carter, who prior to joining Touch spearheaded the Midlands launch of one of the industry’s best known invoice finance providers, said: “This is a very exciting time for me to be involved with a focused, young, energetic team seeking to raise the bar even further on lead volumes and quality. We have set our targets high, but we know we are more than capable of achieving them."

“We also have the backing of an outstanding and expanding panel of lenders, which includes highly reputable organisations well known to the business world."

“Importantly for our clients, as well as our lenders, we are completely abreast of what deals can be written where.  We have the in-house skills to place referrals to the right number of lenders best suited to convert the prospect in the interests of both parties."

“Not only does this save time for everyone concerned – particularly important in today’s economic climate where speed of finance delivery can mean the difference between corporate success and failure – but it is also the most cost effective and efficient way for us all to do business.”

Mark Jefferson added: “We can only do this because we are at great pains to understand every undertaking we come into contact with, be it lender or client. We’re not about a ‘one size fits all’ solution. We’re here to support the future growth and stability of everyone’s operations and our deep industry knowledge and broad experience means that we can direct our leads and tailor them in the most appropriate way.”

Brokering services offered to clients by Touch Financial include invoice finance, asset finance, commercial mortgages and trade finance. These complement the specialisms of Touch’s parent SFP, which offers professional advice on corporate restructuring, forensic accountancy, investigations, debt collection, property matters and insolvency.

Supporting Touch Financial is a team of specialists with almost a century of combined finance industry experience.

Mark Jefferson continued: “We have a fantastic group of people working at Touch, all of whom have a great depth of knowledge as well as the skills and professionalism to make the best of every lead which comes into us.”

This is a sentiment which is thoroughly endorsed by the current CEO of Xbridge Tony Deacon.

Said Tony: “After undergoing a strategic review of our invoice finance activities, we decided to partner with an ambitious team which could take this part of the business even further forward. Touch Financial has the skills, resources and commitment to do that."

“We are delighted with the results and manner in which Touch Financial has taken on the challenge and fully expect this to be a wholly successful move for all those involved.”

The internet has well and truly emerged as a mammoth force in the battle for invoice finance market share, says Simon Carter, director at leading online broker Touch Financial.

The internet can no longer be discounted as a supplementary or superfluous sales generation channel for invoice finance. In the current economic climate, the need to source business funding immediately and effectively is paramount. Coupled with the burgeoning numbers of business internet users, the speed and flexibility of fund sourcing online has become a key route to corporate survival and profitability.

Over the last five years, Touch Financial and its predecessor, Xbridge Invoice Finance, have seen online enquiries for funding grow year-on-year by an average of 40%. Touch Financial is now generating over 500 sales leads each month, a high proportion of which will be converted due to the stringent sifting processes which Touch adopts in matching clients to appropriate lenders.

These figures are projected to rise significantly in coming months, not only because of Touch’s proactive approach to marketing its online brokering services, but because asset-based lending continues to grow and dominate the funding market. In quarter three of 2008, for example, the Asset Based Finance Association stated that advances were totaling over £17.6bn, a 15% growth on the same period 12 months ago.

It is quite obvious that in the economic downturn, businesses are turning away from more traditional funding via the bank overdraft and are looking elsewhere for the financial help they need. Interestingly, where accountants and solicitors were once the main route to market, the customer is increasingly going direct to a lender they are familiar with or taking the online brokering approach to weigh up their options.

As a result, there are now tremendous growth opportunities for ABL funders and online brokers. Indeed, one of the most effective ways for funders to gain market share is to align themselves with an online broker, driven to a large extent by the vastly heightened competition in the marketplace.

You only have to look at the way the banks have become more aggressive in their marketing to know that, despite market growth, the pressure is on for invoice finance leads. Where once the banks placed either no, or very little, strategic focus on their invoice finance division – if they had one at all – we are now finding that asset-based lending, in all its forms, is now at the heart of their commercial finance strategy. Online lead generation, often via an internet-specialist broker such as ourselves, is reaping benefits for them.

However, where the internet and brokering combination has really flourished, and can be a major contributor to competing successfully in the financial services marketplace, is amongst the independent funders. Whilst unable to finance the expensive branding and lead-generation campaigns of their far larger competitors, many have strongly grasped the internet and the use of online brokers as their key way to market.

For them, the internet gives them the scope of a mass market medium, yet there is the capability to generate and sift leads to provide the exact ones required. For example, filtering software enables the generation of risk profiles in real time from those requiring funding. They can be segmented by sector, industry, turnover, gearing, age of the business and the type of debts being held.

The future for the online brokering of invoice finance can only be positive. It is certainly difficult to imagine any reputable financial institution not using the internet as a key tool in the highly competitive battle for financial services leads.

The emphasis will be on using this medium in an increasingly sophisticated fashion to generate both quantity and quality of sales leads. Currently, for many operations, the two can be mutually exclusive.

However, there will also be emphasis on longer-term strategic development to create competitive edge. This will require the funder not only to capitalise on the existing expertise of online brokers and their technology, but to look to these businesses to initiate, maintain and shape communication with a potential lead over an extended period of time.

The challenge – one we willingly and capably rise to – will be not only to satisfy the invoice finance market’s current appetite for leads, but to look at ways in which the business can be developed to encompass a broader range of opportunities for funding partners.

Strategic liaisons, market education and brand awareness are all elements for online brokers to give weight to over coming months. And that is certainly what we at Touch Financial intend to do. We have the world’s most influential communications medium at our fingertips and we will continue to exploit it fully, staying on top of our market and ensuring our clients and our funders stay on top of theirs.

Touch Financial offers brokering services in the following sectors:

• Factoring

• Invoice Discounting

• Asset Financing

• Commercial Mortgages

• Trade Finance

TOUCH FINANCIAL 
CAIRNGORM HOUSE 
MERIDIAN GATE 
LONDON  
E14 9YT

T:  020 7510 0033
F:  020 7510 0066

Business Money February 2009