(PRWEB UK) 31 December 2012
According to Experian, four years on from the launch of the Prompt Payment Code, the difference between the time taken to make payments of the largest companies and the smallest companies has improved significantly. Over the four year period, the average time has fallen by almost nine days, showing more favourable payment behaviour amongst the UK’s largest firms.
The new research analysed payment performance for UK businesses between December 2008, when the Prompt Payment Code was launched, and November 2012. Experian have revealed that since the Code’s launch, the average number of days beyond terms decreased to 23.5 in December 2008 to 21.1 in July 2010, rising to a high of 27.7 in November 2010 but has since stabilised.
In December 2008, smaller businesses were paying their invoices on average 25 days quicker than the UK’s largest companies. As a result of improvements made by the larger firms, the difference is now just 16 days. Signatories and non-signatories of the Code were also reviewed by Experian, revealing that those who had signed up to the Code paid five days earlier than those who had not.
For all the good work on improving payment times, Experian found that larger companies who signed up to the Code actually saw slightly slower payment times compared to the non-signatories.
Surrey-based SmartDebit, have nearly 20 years experience in the payment processing industry, supplying solutions to corporates, SMEs, charities, clubs and the public sector.
A spokesperson from SmartDebit commented, “It is really encouraging to see the progress made over the past four years since the launch of the Prompt Payment Code, especially with the larger firms cutting the time between themselves and their smaller counterparts. The positives should be taken from this research, however, businesses across the UK must not stop here, further improvements can be made through continual analysis of payment collections strategies. We encourage all organisations to analyse their payment collection strategy, and utilise the available payment methods available, such as Direct Debit.”
About SmartDebit
SmartDebit is the UK’s leading Direct Debit Bureau, specialising in payment processing services since 1998. A Bacs approved Bureau, scoring ‘Excellent’ in all five categories of the Bacs audit, and ISO 27001 compliant. Providing a complete range of services: Outsourcing; SmartDebit-Admin cloud based portal; SmartDebit-Online payer sign up; SmartDebit-API integrated solution and SmartDebit-Contingency.
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