Late payment fines…again
Vince Cable (who incidentally is my local MP and lives at the end of my road) has proposed a series of fines for “late paying” multinationals.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/10238415/Businesses-may-face-late-payment-fines.html
A good idea? Hard to argue that ideally small suppliers should be treated with care by larger buyers but we live in the real world of hard money. The stock market puts a big premium on “cash on the balance sheet” and unless that fundamental and very frankly realistic assessment changes, then there suppliers will suffer.
And the key issue is clarified perfectly here
Philip King, chief executive of the Institute of Credit Management, which runs the PPC, said: “Late payment remains a serious issue, so [Mr Cable] is right to be exploring all possible options. He’s also right to link it to responsible capitalism. Treating suppliers fairly deserves more focus.”
However, he warned there would be “devil in the detail as to how guilty parties are accurately identified and how [a proposed levy would be implemented”. He added that any rule that relied on suppliers taking action would be unlikely to succeed.
Cpcmcredit Blog 
Yawn……….
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a politician witter on about how they will stop multinationals paying their suppliers late. Cable is just the latest in a long line of ministers “thinking out loud” about this issue who will end up doing precisely nothing. He is just as ineffective as nearly every other incumbent at BIS has been. Cable is a gesture politician of the first order, happy to oversell and over-hype every so-called cutting edge initiative that comes out of BIS; from support for credit unions, for the completely ineffective help for SME’s with the supply chain finance scheme to what will certainly be a complete white elephant in the brainless Business Bank project. Look out for more headline grabbing “ideas” which never see the light of day coming our way in the run up to next election.
Agree Derek
Unfortunately it’s more a case of being seen to make the right noises rather than constructive action. I wonder how many firms have signed up to the supply chain finance scheme?
But when I talk about action I am again scratching my head as to what course could be taken. Ultimately the market dictates