Receivables financing is widely adopted in France. What is your assessment of how companies are actually using it today?
Thibaut Robet: Today, one out of every two French mid-cap companies (ETIs) uses receivables financing. The solution has fundamentally evolved over the past two decades: it is now a growth lever for expanding businesses rather than a last-resort liquidity tool for distressed companies. In fact, nine out of ten transactions we support involve companies in growth phases.
What barriers are preventing further optimisation?
T.R.: Many companies using receivables financing are not fully leveraging the funding potential of their programmes. Finance teams typically face three major challenges. First, data fragmentation: the required information is split across the accounting ERP, the factor’s portal, and the credit insurer’s platform. This fragmentation leads to multiple manual reconciliations, which are both time-consuming and error-prone. Second, lack of visibility: teams often identify too late which customers could be included in the programme or where credit insurance cover is insufficiently calibrated, resulting in avoidable under-financing. Finally, operational complexity: preparing each assignment can take several hours, involving multiple controls and iterative adjustments.
How does your ARI Trade solution transform these processes?
T.R.: ARI Trade (Accounts Receivable Intelligence) consolidates all receivables financing-related data flows into a single platform. The company’s entire receivables book is referenced within the system. This enables users to activate new customers in just a few clicks, depending on liquidity needs – whether driven by seasonality or specific growth initiatives. The tool integrates via API with the three main credit insurers on the market and allows users to adjust credit limits prior to each assignment, ensuring maximum financing capacity is secured. We deliver not only visibility, but also flexibility. This agility is now a critical requirement for corporates.
What measurable benefits have you observed?
T.R.: The outcomes are twofold. From a financial perspective, we observe on average a 15% increase in available funding, driven by the systematic identification of under-financed receivables and optimisation of credit insurance coverage. From an operational standpoint, the time spent managing receivables financing can be reduced by a factor of five. For example, one of our industrial clients managing around twenty financed entities saves twenty hours per month – equivalent to a full working week. For a large international electronic payments group, we fully eliminated cash flow discrepancies and reduced access-to-funding delays by two days. ARI Trade is scalable across all company sizes, from SMEs to large corporates.
What are your ambitions and outlook for 2026?
T.R.: We are currently finalising the rollout of the SaaS version of ARI Trade, which will be commercially available within the next two months. This technological shift further enhances our ability to deploy new features rapidly, particularly in automated variance analysis powered by artificial intelligence. Our value proposition is rooted in operational implementation: full deployment can be achieved in less than one month. Our Delivery team, composed of around ten receivables financing specialists with hands-on industry experience, provides ongoing support to finance departments, treasurers, and credit management teams.
Source: Daf Mag