APAC: Protection of cash flow tops businesses' agenda
Source: Asia Insurance Review | Dec 2016
90% of Asia Pacific suppliers have experienced late payment of invoices from their B2B customers. Around 40% of suppliers anticipate increasing the use of credit management tools to protect cash flow from the B2B customers’ late payments over the next year. These are findings from credit insurer Atradius’ latest annual Payment Practices Barometer for APAC.
The Barometer found that due to the majority respondents experiencing late payment of invoices from their B2B customers, most of the suppliers reported that they had to take specific measures to correct cash flow (34%), and that they had to pay their own suppliers late (33%). 25% had to pursue additional financing from banks, factors or others to get the necessary funds to pay their own creditors, and 22% had to request a bank overdraft extension. Atradius said this could explain why most of the businesses in APAC (20% of respondents) are of the opinion that cost containment and maintaining adequate cash flow will be the greatest challenges to the profitability of their business this year.
The Atradius Payment Practices Barometer for Asia Pacific gives insights into the key factors for customer payment delay, the challenges to business profitability, and the respondents’ opinion on payment practice trends by industry in the next 12 months. The 2016 Barometer surveyed over 2,500 corporate respondents from eight countries (Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan).