Dear Friends and Colleagues,
During the last month of April, the Executive Committee met in Mestre, Italy, at Banca IFIS headquarters.
We had a full agenda with important topics that would influence the organization’s future. One of the urgent priorities is to rapidly implement the strategic policy to adapt ourselves as one body to the changing environment, mitigate the impact of reduced revenues, broaden our services and our appeal, and expand our ecosystem to include more members in FCI in line with the marketing strategic plan. The Executive Committee is working on many initiatives covering different topics such as governance, compliance, business development, and cost control.
I am also pleased to report some topics covered and the decisions taken below.
Bookkeeping System
After identifying Access on Line as the provider of the new bookkeeping system, the Secretariat is now working with BDO on a new cost accounting framework to set a model for the future bookkeeping methodology and have the new scheme in place for when the new system goes live. The aim is to have a real cost accounting system and visibility by activity both globally and at the regional level as well. The implementation will be officially released on 1st January 2024. Starting from 1st October 2023, the new system will be parallel to ensure it works properly. In addition, an interface will be built so that revenues and costs will be automatically fed from the database into the new accounting system, which will also allow interconnection between the bank accounts, credit card activities, and other systems that will all be seamlessly and automatically directed to the proper GL accounts in the new accounting system.
Selection of New Auditors
At the end of December 2022, BDO notified the Secretariat that they would cease auditing FCI in 2023. The reason was that the company is facing shortages in personnel and also because FCI uses BDO for other services; hence there was a concern of a conflict of interest. The Secretariat initiated the RFP process with several selected audit firms in the Netherlands and received three proposals from Ernst & Young LLC (EY), NBC van Roemburg & Partners (NBC), and Horlings Nexia (Nexia). Based on the service offered and the price quoted, Horlings Nexia was selected by the Executive Committee. Nexia is a full-service organization with five partners and approximately 100 professionals based in Amsterdam, and it is ranked as the 8th largest audit firm globally. The offer submitted is for financial years 2023 – 2027; however, since the appointment of the auditors has to be approved by the Council, considering the urgency, the Executive Committee has decided to commit for one year and get Council ratification during the coming Annual Meeting.
Annual Meeting
At FCI, we have joined forces at different levels to make the coming Annual Meeting memorable. The Marrakech meeting will be the true opportunity to be back to business, network with old and new members, and discuss how receivables finance will evolve and adapt in the future. Some anticipations about the programme: special focus on legal matters will enrich the agenda by launching the new model law on factoring and launching the FCI legal study. Although the official language remains English, to facilitate the delegates from French-speaking countries for the first time, the French language will be used during the roundtable discussions to debate “How to do business in the African region?” We expect this decision will be highly appreciated by members and contribute to increased attendance. Last but not least, the first FCI award dinner will be held in an amazing location. These and many others are the reasons to attend the Annual Meeting in September.
New Membership
7 new members joined FCI in 1Q2023 from Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso and the United States. The main issue we face is the reduction in revenue and its impact on the financials stemming from the large number (28) of frozen/sanctioned members and the reduction in attendance of events stemming from the war in Ukraine, the impact of the pandemic, and the geopolitical tension.
Secretary General Succession
The process for the replacement of the Secretary-General officially began last December and is now getting to the heart. The search firm in charge of the preliminary selection received nearly 40 applications for the position. After reviewing the shortlist, the HR Committee interviewed the candidates virtually in early May and met the finalist person in Amsterdam a few days later. In the second half of June, the selected candidates will be called to Amsterdam for a meeting with the Executive Committee. On that occasion, the new Secretary General will be appointed and will be subsequently introduced to Members during the Annual Meeting in Marrakech.
Revised budget
2023 will remain a challenging year. For this reason, the Executive Committee has started to revise the budget in detail with the aim of analysing all costs and eliminating non-essential expenses. The revised budget will be submitted to the Council for approval during the Council Meeting in September.
We hope you will be able to join us!
This article was written by Mrs Daniela Bonzanini, FCI Chairman, for the May 2023 edition of the FCI In-Sight Newsletter.
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