Inclusive Supply Chain Finance: how to involve the whole ecosystem in a digital world?

Large part of market is unaddressed

Supply Chain Finance typically revolves around a big buyer, providing his good credit rating for selected suppliers, also referred to as reversed factoring. Over the past decades this has become a proven concept, however limited in its practical reach. Not all buyers offer SCF and not all sellers are eligible for this. Unfulfilled needs and therefore an unaddressed market is the result, especially in the SME domain, which usually represents more than 90% of all companies in European economies.

Using digital infrastructures towards Inclusive Supply Chain Finance

This open space conference explores ways to make Supply Chain Finance accessible for all actors in the supply chain, so that a large part of the economy can benefit from the synchronization of material, information and financial flows. This implies advancing today’s most common buyer driven model, towards a model that allows unilateral participation by sellers and buyers, also using technology based new financial services offered by new players (Fintechs). Similar to the pervasiveness of email, mobile communications, cloud computing and banking services which address all sectors of the economy in an infrastructural fashion.

Today’s digital technologies, infrastructures and regulations in the field of invoicing, digital identity, blockchain, risk management and cloud services might prove a good basis for the further extension of supply chain finance, contributing to improved liquidity and efficiency of companies along Supply Chains. A development certainly of high interest for governments looking for healthy and stable economies. Digital technologies in addition provide the basis for smart finance approaches, which aim at enabling decentral autonomy of financial transactions and other financial processes. Combining Smart Finance processes with the new inclusive Supply Chain approach iSCF could prove as the game changer in the future of Financial Supply Chain Management.

Involve all stakeholders

During this one-day interactive event we will address the most important dimensions on realizing the vision of ‘inclusive supply chain finance’ (iSCF). These include stakeholder analysis and incentives, new propositions and business cases, both from the viewpoint of society as well as individual stakeholders.

Concepts to be discussed include:

1. Various forms of supply chain financing: reverse factoring, asset finance (invoices, capital goods, stocks) and overdrafts
2. Availability of big and small data: the sharing of data between actors in the supply chain, such that these become risk mitigators and improve visibility of goods and finance
3. Availability and outlook of digital infrastructures, including blockchain
4. Smart Finance solutions as enabler of autonomous supply chains
5. Management of risks, regulations and standards and the opportunity data gives in this field

This first conference on iSCF is important for all stakeholders in this field, including financiers, technology platforms, invoicing providers, ERP providers, public policy makers and regulators, the academic world, corporates, SMEs and explicitly also entrepreneurs and start-ups in the field.