Our editor Deepesh Patel had the pleasure of moderating a panel on Greensill at FCI’s 53rd  Virtual Annual Meeting 2021.

The panel included:

  • Sean Edwards, Chairman, ITFA, UK
  • Igor Zaks, President, Tenzor, Canada
  • Thomas Dunn, Chairman, Orbian, UK

This post-mortem analysis was a tricky one, given that the collapse of Softbank-backed Greensill Capital is still an unfolding story.

However, we must not forget the real-economy importance of supply chain finance and payables techniques, particularly in terms of the post-pandemic recovery, as well as their role in helping smaller businesses getting paid sooner.

The industry has seen its fair share of sensationalist ‘celeb worthy headlines, finger-pointing, and prime minister scandals.

But as FT’s Robert Smith highlighted earlier, factoring is supposed to be a non-sexy, low-yielding, and stable business, so what on earth happened?

The panel discussed what supply chain finance is (or isn’t); the ‘fin’ versus the ‘tech’; the potential mis-selling of these techniques for beneficial accounting treatment; and what this could mean for the future of supply chain finance, from many different perspectives.

Watch the panel discussion on demand now