WFY’25: A mixed year for UK invoice finance and ABL sector in 2024

Alex Waterman, Principal, Invoice Finance and Asset-Based Lending; Commercial Finance, UK Finance, share insights on the UK factoring market in the regional article featured in the most recent edition (2025) of the World Factoring Yearbook (WFY’25). Below is an excerpt from his excellent article.

The year 2024 was a mixed year for the invoice finance and asset-based lending (IF/ABL) sector in the United Kingdom, not dissimilar to the story of the UK economy as a whole.

It was hoped that 2024 would see a third consecutive record year in terms of client sales turnover, but due to slow first and last quarters of the year, total turnover fell short by 1 per cent against 2023’s record. Nonetheless, UK Finance’s IF/ABL members still supported clients with a combined turnover of £313bn during 2024, around 12 per cent of GDP.

Despite turnover falling marginally, the level of advances rose from £20.1bn at the end of 2023 to £21.6bn at the end of 2024, a 7.5 per cent increase. This is likely to have been driven partly by much steadier UK interest rates than experienced in 2023. The average size of client business supported by members increased again while the number of clients reduced by a further 1.5 per cent, continuing the trend seen over the last decade with the sector supporting more turnover and providing more finance to fewer but larger businesses.

We consider the data underlying the performance of the sector in more detail in the two following sections.

…

To read the whole article and 42 other specialist articles and country market reviews, order World Factoring Yearbook 2025 here.