On June, 13-18, Vienna (Austria) the Annual Meeting of the members of Factor Chain International (FCI) took place.

At present the association numbers 252 members from 66 countries. Around 270 representatives of the factoring companies-members of FCI took part in the meeting.

The aggregate turnover of the members of the association including domestic and international factoring amounted to 757 bln EUR in 2009 (4% less than for the previous reporting period). The international factoring turnover reduced by 7% and amounted to 134 bln EUR; the two-factor international factoring turnover also dropped from 12,3 bln EUR to 9,9 bln EUR. The main reason for that is the decrease of the import-export operations volume that was a direct consequence of the world economic crisis.

Apart from 2009 results the first volume figures for 5 months of 2010 were presented at the meeting. The top 7 two-factor export factoring markets are currently as follows: China (1052 bln EUR), Taiwan (933 bln EUR), Turkey (798 bln EUR), Hong Kong (369 bln EUR), Greece (268 bln EUR), Spain (241 bln EUR), Japan (226 bln EUR). The absolute leader according to two-factor import factoring volume is the USA (1393 bln EUR), and further in descending order Germany (657 bln EUR), France (466 bln EUR), China (374 bln EUR), Italy (358 bln EUR) and Spain (319 bln EUR).

Traditionally the results of several contests annually conducted among the association members have been summed up at the meeting. The three winners in marketing communication field ( this year the web sites have been appraised) are PRVI Factor, Slovenia, FIBA Factoring, Turkey, DBS Bank, Hong Kong. Eurofactor AG, Germany became the Import-Factor of the year, while TEB Factoring, Turkey - the export-factor of the year and Mizuho Factors, Japan became "the Best Factor of the last five years (export and import)".

Special attention was given to further development of the Purchase order management project, that implies introducing to purchase orders cover in FCI . Thus a tendency of systematic construction of the full-fledged supply chain finance system may be traced. The evidence supporting this statement may be the fact that by the end of the current year the startup of the system with the "basic" functionality for order cover in the two-factor system is planned.

National Factoring Company at the FCI Annual meeting was represented by the Chairman of the Board Mr.Roman Ogonkov and the Deputy Chairman of the Board Mr. Corneliu Robu who noted the following: "We have got an impression that some countries as China and Brazil were not affected by the crisis at all while our colleagues from Greece, Portugal and Spain let us understand that the crisis has badly damaged the sector. However, I'm pleased to state the fact that in comparison with last year the major part of the meeting participants demonstrated reasonable optimism regarding the factoring world market in general and local markets in particular. We had around 15 meetings with NFC current and potential partners in international factoring operations."

The next Annual FCI meeting will take place in June 2011 in San-Francisco, the USA.