bex.com, Chailease Finance to set up e-factoring system

Taipei, 23 December 1999 -- Global e-commerce service provider, bex.com, has announced a strategic alliance with Taiwan's leading factoring company, Chailease Finance, to set up a global electronic Factoring Management System (E-Factoring).

The system will fully integrate exporters' invoicing system with Chailease E-factoring system, Chailease bills management and information system, Factor Chain International (FCI)'s global factoring system and importers' payment system. When the system is completed, the string of complicated processes of international factoring, collections, payments, risk assurance and bills management that occur from the time the exporter's invoice is opened upon shipment of goods to the payment of goods by the importer, will all be completed in a matter of a few clicks.

"We expect that this system will increase the business volume of Chailease Finance by at least three times and sustain our world leadership position in export undertakings," said Mr Jian Maonan, Chairman of Chailease Finance.

According to Mr Yong Voon-Fee, Chairman and CEO of bex.com, the alliance opens up new horizons for bex.com's on-line customers. "Non-credit terms is a popular mode of payment in international trade today," said Mr Yong. "By setting up a global e-factoring system with Chailease Finance, we will be able to meet the needs of the international trading community with payment methods that they are already familiar with."

"As bex.com expands its regional e-marketplaces beyond Taiwan and Greater China to Southeast Asia, Japan and the Americas and later to Europe, we will be able to support a seamless and highly secure payment method."

To particularly strengthen its services to overseas Chinese firms worldwide, Chailease Finance will establish its bases in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Silicon Valley of America and Southeast Asia. These will be linked up with its system in Taiwan to form an overseas Chinese factoring network to assist overseas Chinese firms through transaction-based capital financing, so as to significantly improve the weak long term overseas financial support of Taiwanese firms.

Non-credit terms popular
Non-credit trading terms are becoming increasingly popular in international trade in the past few years. According to the Taiwan Central Bank, more than 78.3 percent of Taiwan's export trades were conducted with foreign countries based on non-credit terms. Of these, remittance-based trading terms (T/T or O/A) were as high as 74.3 percent, an increase of 16.7 percent over the same period last year. And in these exports which amounted to more than USD10 billion, the majority were conducted on open account trade terms. Taiwanese exporters have also reportedly encountered hundreds of millions of dollars in international bad debts each year.

A factoring company (factor), such as Chailease Finance, deals with international debts and undertakes the role of a legal creditor to provide full debt assurance services such as debt collection, risk-shouldering and assistance in the arbitration of international trade disputes. Chailease Finance, which has been providing such services for more than 10 years, has been ranked by FCI as the top company among its 120 members from over 40 countries.