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Laatste trends in financiering: oog voor duurzaamheid
| 02-03-2018 | Bianca van Zeventer |
Duurzaam ondernemen wordt steeds belangrijker voor de toegang tot financiering en financieringsvoorwaarden. Al langer wordt door overheid, investeerders en banken kritisch gekeken naar duurzaamheid. Waar voorheen de overheid en gemeentes het initiatief namen, is de financiële sector nu ook een actieve kracht in het stimuleren van duurzaamheid, door middel van maatwerk financieringsvoorwaarden.
Voor financiering van duurzame projecten, zijn door de gemeentes de afgelopen jaren fondsen opgericht, die leningen verstrekken tegen aantrekkelijke voorwaarden.
De Regeling Groenprojecten van de overheid is sinds 2016 van kracht. Deze regeling biedt belastingvoordeel voor groene spaarders en beleggers en daarnaast de mogelijkheid voor erkende banken om via een ‘groen’ fonds geld uit te lenen aan duurzame projecten met een rentekorting. Het zwaartepunt ligt hier vooral op stimulering van energie besparende projecten, duurzaam bouwen en duurzame transportmiddelen.
Naast de overheid, richt nu ook de financiële sector zich, meer dan ooit, op het stimuleren van duurzaamheid.
Duurzaamheiddoelstellingen in financiering laten daarbij een duidelijke verbreding zien. Niet alleen energiebesparing, duurzame energie en CO2 uitstoot krijgen nu de aandacht, maar ook andere – veelal sociaal economische – doelstellingen. Bij de recente financieringen van Philips en Barry Callebaut zijn bijvoorbeeld de kredietvoorwaarden gekoppeld aan een beoordeling door Sustainalytics, die veel breder kijkt naar duurzaamheid. Dit in lijn met de doelstellingen van de Verenigde Naties. De VN heeft in totaal 17 SDG’s (Sustainable Development Goals ofwel Duurzame Ontwikkelingsdoelstellingen) opgesteld ter bestrijding van armoede, ongelijkheid en klimaatverandering.
De aandacht voor duurzaamheid in financiering werkt twee kanten op.
Enerzijds zal financiering voor niet-duurzame projecten en ondernemingen beperkt worden. Banken en investeerders hebben bijvoorbeeld al aangegeven de financiering aan fossiele energie projecten te willen beperken en dat energielabels op onroerend goed een doorslaggevende rol zullen gaan spelen in de toekomst.
Anderzijds wordt duurzaamheid gestimuleerd, door het opnemen van duurzaamheidscriteria in maatwerk leningsovereenkomsten. Wanneer bedrijven aan deze duurzaamheidscriteria voldoen, betalen zij een lagere rente.
Oog voor duurzaamheid loont. Het vergroot de financieringsmogelijkheden en geeft toegang tot aantrekkelijke financieringsvoorwaarden. Bedrijfsgrootte is van ondergeschikt belang. Groenleningen kunnen bijvoorbeeld al worden afgesloten vanaf circa €10.000.
Uw Flextreasurer kan helpen bij het vinden van de juiste, en meest aantrekkelijke financieringsvorm.
Treasury and Finance Specialist / Owner of CuCoFin
Regulating cryptocurrencies: walking the tightrope
| 01-03-2018 | Carlo de Meijer |
Regulators across the world are looking at whether — and how — to regulate cryptocurrencies. As a reaction last week cryptocurrencies tumbled with the Bitcoin falling even below $6,000 after having reached a high of $20,000 on 17 December for fear of more regulation. The cryptomarket value also fell deeply from $674 billion in December to $315 billion. Also the hack of the Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck, where some hundreds of millions of dollars disappeared caused enough unrest. Up till now there is however no univocal direction in how cryptocurrencies are looked at and how to treat them.
Why intervene in the cryptocurrency market?
It is no surprise that governments and regulators are becoming more vocal and putting together tasks forces on how to deal with it. There are compelling reasons why cryptocurrencies should be under more scrutiny by regulators and supervisors. The threat of price volatility, speculative trading and hack attacks all call for stricter regulation. Main goal of regulators is to create long-term stability afforded by common policies and elimination of fraudulent actions and practices.
To protect the consumer
Firstly, there is the need of tighter oversight of crypto exchanges and trading platforms from the viewpoint of investor protection. These markets are however not transparent for private investors. There are clear risks for private investors associated to price volatility, operational and security failures at crypto exchanges, market manipulation and liability gaps. Many experts worry that the trade in Bitcoin futures, crypto funds and other highly speculative financial products will inflate a speculative bubble, while running the risk of losing all their money. In that case there is – unlike at normal currencies such as euro, dollar and yen – no public institution like governments or central banks behind it.
Fear of criminal activities
According to many, aside from the instability of cryptocurrency prices, these cryptocurrencies must have greater regulatory oversight in order to prevent illegal activity and illegitimate use. Aside from the instability of cryptocurrency prices, regulators are worrying about criminals who are increasingly using cryptocurrencies for activities (trading away from official channels) like fraud and manipulation, tax evasion, hacking, money laundering and funding for terrorist activities.
Systemic risk
There is also the systemic risk that is inherent to the crypto-economy. If it continues to grow uncontrolled there is the danger of destabilising the financial system worldwide. The overheating of the cryptocurrency market with speculative money and the wild price fluctuations have raised alarms and calls for tightening of regulations in many countries from the viewpoint of financial system stability. If the price bubble bursts, it can quickly endanger individual institutions and parts of the financial markets. If big losses would occur this could hurt the reputation of the whole market.
Regulators are stepping in
The advent and subsequent boom of cryptocurrencies on a global scale as well as the heavy fluctuations have left many governments scrambling to find ways to deal with this new phenomenon. Regulators and other official authorities worldwide are stepping in to define how they would oversee this cryptocurrency environment (what had been to date a legally “murky” environment). Governments around the world are now looking at how to regulate Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
What could they actually do: the options
There are various options to deal with cryptocurrencies, ranging from a complete ban to the other extreme of creating an own state digital currency. The options are just warn and further do nothing, complete ban, categorise as financial asset, regulate the exchanges or create a state owned crypto currency.
Read the full article of our expert Carlo de Meijer on LinkedIn
Carlo de Meijer
Economist and researcher
Fiscal union and the Euro – a modern version of Helen and Cassandra?
| 28-02-2018 | treasuryXL |
To truly obtain integration it was always evident that steps would have to be made towards fiscal union – monetary union was just the start. A fiscal system needs to be in place that ensures a form of stability – transferring funds from strong countries to weaker countries. Whilst the Euro has contributed to growth in trade between member states, and certainly citizens have been able to source and price goods and services without an exchange rate risk, it has fallen short on certain goals. Mobility within the labour market was never going to replicate that in America. The national boundaries might have gone, but the language and cultural borders are still present. Therefore, a shortage of labour in Poland, can never be met by an influx of Belgians and Spanish looking for work. Investment capital has certainly not moved as freely as anticipated – the idea that surplus funds from Northern Europe would flow freely to the South and allow them to strengthen their position in the marketplace has remained an idea.
As previously stated the expected convergence of different economies has not happened. In fact, it would appear that they have diverged. There is much information that can be found on the internet that explains how the countries in the South increased wages by a far greater factor than productivity after implementing the Euro. It appears that gaining wage parity with the Germans was more important than actually increasing productivity. These excess wages were invariably spent on well-designed, but expensive, German products resulting in trade deficits with the countries in the North.
Emmanuel Macron – the President of France – has vociferously stated that Europe has to be more politically integrated; have a common defence policy and armed forces; more regulation of business; and a transfer mechanism to transfer funds from rich to weaker countries – a fiscal union.
However, considering that the countries within the EU have actually diverged from each other on the basis of GDP, inflation, Government debt, unemployment etc. since the inception of the Euro, and even more so since the start of the financial crisis, there is an inherent danger in transferring funds.
The word transfer implies not only something going from A to B, but also from B to A. The disparity within the economies would mean that the transfer would only be going in one direction for a very long time in the foreseeable future. The political implication is profound – would people from countries that are considered rich accept a long term action that would see their wealth reallocated to weaker countries. Some supporters might say that this just a matter of semantics – however the consequences are far reaching and permanent.
Which brings us round to Cassandra – when recollecting stories from Greek mythology people have a good knowledge of the story of Helen of Troy. One of the minor characters, but a very important one, is Cassandra. She who received the gift of prophecy but was cursed never to be believed. She warned about the fall of Troy, the Greeks hiding with the Trojan horse and the war that would happen when Paris fell in love. No one listened to her. There are many politicians and economists who have previously tried to warn about the problems within the Eurozone. Some voiced their opinions even before the Euro existed – but their voices were also dismissed.
There have been more than 50 infringements by member states on the criteria of the Euro since its inception. No sanctions or punishment were ever handed out. To think that things will be different in the future is wishful thinking. In almost a decade since the financial crisis, there has been no structural solution to the inequalities within the Euro and their members. We are almost 10 years further and the differences are even greater and still not resolved. Further integration whilst not acknowledging and addressing the imbalances can only lead to further divergence.
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