In this financing section, we learn about the various sources of finance. The various sources of finance can be categorized as:-
- SHORT TERM FINANCE is generally borrowings that repayable within ONE year;(PART1)
- Medium- term finance are those repayable within 2 to 5 years (Part2) and
- Long-term finance repayable after more than 5 years(Part3)
You may asked what’s so important to differentiate finance into its various period namely short to medium to long term finance.
The main rationale is that if a company has long term investments where returns are not yet forthcoming, the project/investment should strictly be bridged by long term sources of finance. Just imagine that as the manager who is in charge of getting the finance, you manage to finance it with short term financing facilities like bank overdraft ,etc- the financial interest will shoot sky-high for many years with no returns/cash in-flow.
Append below is a table of the various type of short term finance:
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Sources Of Short-term finance
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Description
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Bank Overdrafts
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- Simplest and most flexible type of short term finance for most business;
- Interest is charged only on those utilized;
- Unutilized amount might be charged a small % of commitment fee;
- This facility is given on top of what the owner has in his/her current account;
- Generally about 2%-5% above the lender bank’s base lending rate. Premium spread like 0.25% to 0.75% are given by the lender bank to their high valued customers;
- Flexible because the borrower can reduce his overdraft as and when he wants by merely banking into his current account which has the overdrawn amount;
- The main disadvantages are this type of facility is repayable on demand and normally the borrower need to provide security/collateral for the overdraft facility.
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Short-term loans
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- Fixed amount and have a fixed period of time to repay the loan;
- Duration from few months to few years;
- Repayments either in installments or bullet type meaning one lump sum repayment;
- Interest is charge on the amount borrowed;
- Like bank overdraft, need to provide security or collateral for the lender bank;
- Advantage - the company does not need to pay back immediately especially when they embark on medium to long term projects/investments. So it is more secure than bank overdraft;
- Disadvantage - the interest rate is fixed. Un-conducive particularly when interest rates trends are moving downward;
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Revolving Credit
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- Borrowing for a short period of time say ninety days but renewable when expiry date is due;
- Has the feature of both short-term and medium-term loans as the borrower can keep repaying and borrowing for a few years
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Bridging loans
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- Normally applies to property based or project financing
- Loans are given for a specified period of time and coincides with the date the funds to repay. For example, in a housing project, a bridging loan of $XXmillion is repayable when the house owners commence to pay the housing developer.
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Debt Factoring
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- The lender bank or finance company takes over the company’s trade debts in return for a commission;
- Services offered include debt collection and administration, credit insurance and finance provision;
- Debt collection and administration includes taking over all the trade debts and manages the collection of debts for a fee/commission;
- Credit insurance is the paying in advance certain portion of the face value of the debts say 85%. Two types: recourse and non-recourse factoring arrangement. Recourse means that in the event of bad debts, the company will absorb it whilst non-recourse is that the factoring company will absorb the bad debts but will charge a higher commission for doing so;
- Finance provision is similar to recourse factoring.
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Invoice discounting
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- Similar to factoring. The lender will advance a percentage of the trade debt;
- The collection and management of the trade debt is done by the company and not the lending institution;
- The borrower to repay amount advanced plus interest charged.
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Trade credits
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- Credit extended by the supplier of goods and/ services;
- Normally for a period of 30 to 90 days;
- Credit term given by suppliers will depend on the company’s financial position and whether discount is taken or not;
- Interest free unless if supplier offers discount and borrower did not pay to enjoy the discount benefit;
- Therefore, the “cheapest” source of finance but should be handled properly otherwise company’s reputation might be ruined if it overstretch the credit term given by the suppliers.
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