The German factoring market 2018: Industry figures
Factoring once more grows by 4%
(Berlin, 8th of May 2019) In 2018, the turnover of the members of the German factoring association (Deutscher Factoring-Verband e.V.) increased by 4% to a new total of 241.8 billion Euro. The number of clients increased even above average by 20% to 43,830 clients.
Factoring has become more and more popular and is used increasingly both by small and large businesses: Out of the number of factoring clients, more than 92% are served in the SME-typical segment of 0 to 10 million Euro factoring turnover.
The factoring ratio remained at last year‘s all-time high of 7.1%, which means that more than 7% of the German GDP is represented through factoring. The factoring ratio is measured as the ratio between the volume of purchased receivables (according to the turnover of the members of the German factoring association) and the gross domestic product (GDP).
As Michael Menke, member of the German factoring association’s executive board summarizes: „For the ninth time in a row, the factoring turnover has grown, this time by 4%. Together with the strong increase in client numbers, this proves how relevant factoring has become in the field of business financing.“
2018 was another successful year also for international factoring: Import and export factoring increased by nearly 6% to now over 76 billion Euro. In contrast to last year, import factoring increased very dynamically by nearly 17% to now 4.3 billion Euro. In comparison, the growth of export factoring by 5.3% to 71.7 billion Euro was a little more restrained.
During the reporting year, remarkable changes occurred with regard to the most important industries for factoring: Trade/trade negotiation, services, metal production and processing, vehicle construction and manufacturing of metal products and machines continued to be in the top 5. The first position remained unchanged, services even improved by one mark (now on position 2), metal production and processing climbed to position 3, while manufacturing of metal products and machines fell by 3 marks.
Reverse factoring increased remarkably in 2018, by 127% to now 4.5 billion Euro (1.9 billion Euro in 2017). It remains to be seen if this is a sign of a permanent increase of this kind of factoring which is mainly used to cover supplier relationships.
Outlook
Despite the general economic situation clouding over, the outlook for factoring in 2019 is remarkably favourable: The members of the German factoring association have a more positive outlook than they have had in a long time. More than 17% of the members provide a „very good“ prognosis (plus 15%), 31% anticipate a „good“ development (in comparison to 41% in 2018) and 51% foresee a still „satisfactory“ business development for 2018 (2018: more than 55%).
The members of the German factoring association represent around 98% of the factoring market organized in associations in Germany. The figures of the German factoring association are therefore the leading benchmark of the whole German factoring market.
Press contact:
Deutscher Factoring-Verband e.V.
Dr. jur. Alexander M. Moseschus, Verbandsgeschäftsführer/managing director
Behrenstr. 73, 10117 Berlin
Tel.: +49-(0)30-20 654 654, Fax: +49-(0)30-20 654 656
e-mail: kontakt@factoring.de
