The total turnover for the factoring and commercial finance industry in 2009 in the EU was 827.516 million EUR representing a decrease of only 1.9 % as measured against the 2008 figures.

When compared with a 4% drop in EU GDP and a 3.14% drop in the worldwide factoring market this small decline evidences the robustness of the industry in Europe when compared to general economic growth and to its counterparts worldwide. Given that EU factoring turnover represents almost 70% of the world factoring turnover this is an impressive achievement.

Five countries made up approximately 80% of the total EU market share: United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany and Spain. The factoring penetration in GDP remained consistent with prior years at 6,49%.

Mr. John Gielen, Chairman of the EU Federation for Factoring and Commercial Finance, commented:

"The new figures confirm that the factoring and commercial finance industry is particularly well adapted to finance business enterprises, especially SMEs, during an economic and banking crisis. I am confident that next year the market share of our industry will continue to increase. The low GDP penetration in many EU countries (as compared to the more mature markets) shows also that the industry has a lot of potential to grow "

More details about the factoring turnover in EU can be found at this link.