The results reveal a downturn in commercial finance business written over the previous twelve months - although the amount of commercial mortgage business written in the period has actually increased.
Chief executive of the NACFB, Adam Tyler, commented: “We have had more responses from members to this year’s survey than in any previous year and the results, although disappointing, are not surprising. The figures are taken from the period of June 2007 to June 2008, which means that there would have been four to five months at the beginning of this period which were relatively unaffected by the now infamous credit crunch.”
He continues: “One huge growth area has been factoring and invoice discounting. We have been more scientific about the way the figures have been collated this year, and the number of responses we have had has allowed the calculations to be more accurate in 2008 than in 2007 so I would suggest that part of this discrepancy can be accounted for by an underreporting last year. However, I believe that it is no coincidence that in a contracted market brokers are having to diversify and invoice finance is one of the few areas which is still relatively unaffected by the downturn.
“Leasing business written by members has dipped lightly, however we are looking to recruit more leasing specialists to the Association and offer more to existing leasing members. We now have two members of the NACFB Board who come from the leasing market, and with their assistance we will look at making sure that all commercial finance brokers are properly represented by their Association.”
“I am delighted to be able to report that membership has grown by 9% in the twelve months of the survey and the feedback from members about the Association had been overwhelmingly positive. Any feedback in areas we could improve has been taken on board and we will look at enhancing the website to offer more to members in the coming year.”
