UniCredit Tiriac Bank’s volume of factoring operations amounted to some EUR 796 million in 2012, similar to the level in 2011. Factoring is a financial transaction in which a business sells its accounts receivables, such as  invoices, to a third party -called a factor- at a discount.

According to the bank, the industries with the highest contribution to the total volume of its factoring contracts were construction - 28 percent, followed by the car and equipment segment - 19 percent, metals and chemicals - 14 percent and the agriculture and food industry - 13 percent.

UniCredit Tiriac offers several factoring products, namely domestic and export factoring with or without recourse, import factoring, independent collection services, reverse factoring and maturity factoring.

Domestic factoring had the largest share in the total turnover recorded in 2012 - over 83 percent of all the managed receivables. The turnover recorded from export factoring saw a big hike in 2012 - 163 percent increase in 2012 compared to the previous year, while the turnover from import factoring had a year-on-year growth of 90 percent. Moreover, companies with turnover between EUR 5 million and EUR 50 million contributed 52 percent to UniCredit Tiriac Bank’s total volume of factoring.

Overall, the factoring market in Romania increased significantly in 2012. Nearly two weeks ago Romania’s Factoring Association (ARF) announced that the local factoring market had risen 12.8 percent year-on-year in 2012 to reach a new record level of almost EUR 3 billion. Local bank BCR also recently announced big increases in its factoring business last year.

UniCredit Tiriac Bank ended 2012 with a net consolidated profit of some EUR 40 million, up 11.3 percent on 2011, as revenues increased and provisions went down, according to the bank. UniCredit Tiriac Bank has 208 subsidiaries in Romania and serves 591,000 clients.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Sxc.hu)