Starting with 25 January 2019, Cristian Ionescu, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Co-Founder, took over the company's leadership position, becoming CEO and President of Instant Factoring IFN S.A.
Instant Factoring has planned this year to open two new branches in Central and Eastern Europe to strengthen its regional presence and expand small business microfinance operations online. In this regard, the company makes a strategic move, designating a CEO for the future Instant Factoring Group, in the person of Cristian Ionescu, Co-founder and President of the Administration Council.
In each of the countries where subsidiaries will be opened, including Romania, a Country Manager responsible for conducting local operations and executing a business plan aligned with the objectives set by shareholders and investors will be appointed as the lead.
Cristian Ionescu has over 15 years of experience in financial services and business consulting, focusing on risk management services, including factoring, commercial credit insurance, corporate finance, company risk assessment, and business receivables collection.
He has served Coface for 10 years as CEO for Romania, and later for Central and Eastern Europe.
Over the past 6 years, he has been Country Manager, the local branch of Expense Reduction Analysts, the world leader in service consulting for optimizing operational expenses.
"This change is a step forward in our regional expansion plan that will begin in the coming months by opening a new branch in Croatia and will continue in the second half of the year with the second country. At the same time, we are proposing an increase in funding volumes in Romania to over 10 million euros in 2019, a 300% increase over 2018, so we need a solid and capable team to meet these ambitious goals. We want to strengthen our strategic presence in Romania and Central and Eastern Europe and take advantage of the competitive technological advantage that the company has and consolidates at the moment. We will bring together new specialists with international experience in financial operations as well as risk assessment activities to support our regional strategy as well as professionals in crediting small and micro companies in the countries where we will expand, "said Cristian Ionescu, CEO and Instant Factoring President
"The process of changing the organizational structure in Romania is already in the right line and we are preparing to announce the name of Country Manager for Romania soon. We have been looking for a person with extensive experience in factoring, acquired in top financial institutions, SME financing and, most importantly, with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, "said Cristian Ionescu.
Instant Factoring facilitates the development of small businesses by providing them with flexible and innovative financing solutions by converting the invoices within the payment term into liquidity.
The financing decision is taken within an average of 2 hours, thanks to the advanced technology the platform has, and in maximum 24 hours the client receives the money in the account. The entire process of risk assessment and operations management is automated and fully online, all being carried out quickly and transparently and without requiring additional documents for amounts up to $ 50,000.
On the whole, Instant Factoring finalizes online invoices with individual values up to 100,000 euros.
Until now, the company has provided microfinance funding of 3 million euros in Romania, with approximately 1,700 grants granted in the 10 months since its establishment.
The average value of an invoice was around € 2,100, double the estimated market value, and the underperformance rate on the current exposure is below 1,5% by the end of 2018.
