International factoring business

In 2008, the global economic condition experienced a stormy start to the year due to the global financial crisis. Towards the end of 2008, this development was levelled which affected the global economy and global trade at large.

Notwithstanding, German export boomed once more in 2008 and products "made in Germany" were in demand on the world market. Germany was able to defend its title as world champion in export trade during yet another year. As in the years before, products and services from Germany were especially sought after in the old and new partner countries of Europe. The export of goods increased by 3.7% to 994 billion Euro in 2008, even though the financial crisis showed its effects by lowering the growth rate (in 2007, the rate of increase amounted to 8.5%).

Traditionally, export factoring is a particularly secure and popular form of business financing for German export firms. Hence, it is affected directly by up- and downturns in global trade. Therefore, it is especially pleasing that the total turnover in the international factoring business increased by 21.38% from 24.82 billion Euro in 2007 to 30.15 billion Euro in 2008. Thereby, the 30 billion-threshold was crossed for the first time - another important benchmark in the development of the German factoring industry.

The growth in the export business amounted to 22.84% (from 22.51 billion Euro in 2007 to 27.66 billion Euro in 2008), while the increase in the import business slowed down to 7.26% in 2008 due to the international financial crisis (from 2.32 billion Euro in 2007 to 2.49 billion Euro in 2008). In the first half-year of 2009, another decrease was noted for the import and export business (by 8.12% and 17.55% respectively, compared to the first half-year of 2008).

The key partner countries and regions for the international factoring business largely remained the same: Benelux, France, Eastern Europe, Italy, Austria, Great Britain, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Spain, USA, Africa, Asia, Turkey and Greece (fig. 0508). Remarkably, the transaction volumes for Eastern Europe grew once more so as to now take up ranking position 3.

The number of enterprise bankruptcies in Europe amounted to approx. 150 000 in 2008, which shows an increase by 11% compared to 2007. The largest share of enterprise bankruptcies was observed in the service sector. The effect of this development upon the international factoring business still remains to be seen.