Germany

The export financing division of German state-owned bank Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (KfW), has announced plans to enter the leasing market.

The wave of corporate insolvencies in Germany has ebbed somewhat in the course of this year but could rise again slightly in 2005, a top credit insurance company reported.

German bankers may not like to admit it, but for the first time in post-war German history, the country's small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), known collectively as the Mittelstand, face a credit crunch.

German state export credit guarantees, the so-called “Hermes coverage” with which the German government protects German exporters from payment defaults abroad, increasingly have to jump in to cover for economic damage.

Just a few weeks ago, economics minister Wolfgang Clement said the main impediment to economic growth was the restrictive lending policy of banks.

The 20 companies that make up the German factoring association increased their turnover by almost 25 per cent in the first half of 2004, compared to the corresponding period of last year, to Ј20.5bn, according to the association’s latest figures.

The German banking group of the state development bank Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (KfW), KfW Bankengruppe, has joined forces with public-sector regional bank Landesbank Rheinland-Pfalz (LRP) in creating a Ђ15m global loan for small- and medium

BCR talks to Deutsche Factoring Bank spokesman, Karl Joachim Lubitz about the most significant issues in the German factoring market today.

“The members of the German Factoring Association (GFA), representing over 95% of the market, achieved a total volume of Ђ35.08 billion in 2003, 16.3% more than the Ђ30 billion achieved in 2002…”