Financial insecurity is a plague of the modern business world, let alone that of technology. Since the financial collapse of 2008 institutions, businesses and enterprise resource planning outfits (ERPs) have found it more and more difficult to translate balance sheets or financial statements, which are released rarely, with the true risk involved in an investment or debt.
Slovenia, located in the center of Europe, was hit harder than most European countries. Even last year, stress tests of local banks revealed gaping holes in the nation’s economy. The three biggest Slovenian banks are bust.
“The banks’ plight arises from mounting losses on their loans,” writes The Economist. “Between the middle of 2012 and of 2013, the ratio of non-performing to total loans rose from 13.2% to 17.4%, which is the highest level in the euro zone after Greece and Ireland. The bad debts have been incurred predominantly through lending to businesses. Slovenia’s firms are weighed down by debt, which is particularly high in relation to equity.”
Perhaps Slovenia’s ailing financial institutions may have mitigated some of that debt risk with compatriot firm BizOnRate, a breakthrough startup, which via stringent and comprehensive data collection, believes it has made risk management far easier and safer. Headed up by Tilen Oseli, a data whizz who studied in Slovenia’s second-largest city of Maribor, the firm promises to provide daily financial data on other companies, so decisions on debt can be made in real time, and without relying on potentially out-of-date numbers.
BizOnRate receives data directly from ERP systems, not balance books or statements, “as these can be outdated or even counterfeited.” This wealth of data allows easy access to funding, probability of on-time payments by debtors, warnings about problematic debtors and information that can help before closing a deal. The company, which still operates with a handful of staff but is looking to expand into other European markets, operates through invoices issued “to determine the financial solvency of the companies you work with.”
“BizOnRate is the first rating agency on the market, which provides companies and financial institutions with current information about companies based on the issued invoices,” continues the company. “We receive the data directly from you, not the balance sheets and financial statements, which can be outdated and even manipulated. The data is then solely used to make calculations, which can provide your customers with crucial information about the companies they conduct business with.”
The events of the past few years have been devastating, both on paper and in terms of trust between companies and debtors. How apt, then, that one of Europe’s leading rating solutions is based right in the heart of one of the economic meltdown’s epicenters. And Oseli, a young entrepreneur with a flair for solutions marketing and project management, appears well placed to bring that trust back, using leading-edge technology.