Invoice finance: nullifying the ban on invoice assignment contract clauses

Invoice finance allows a business to give the right to future payment to a finance provider in exchange for a loan up to the full value of the invoice. It can provide a vital source of finance if a business has to wait a long time between completing a job and receiving payment.

The ban on invoice assignment is often part of a more general ban on an assignment clause in the contract to stop a supplier from sub-contracting. As a result, a business’ access to invoice finance is often unintentionally restricted.

In December 2013, we published our discussion paper Building a responsible payment culture. This asked whether removing contractual barriers to selling invoices would be helpful to small businesses by increasing their access to different finance options. The majority of respondents agreed that it would be helpful.

We announced in the government response that we would legislate to remove these barriers to financing. Clauses 1 and 2 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill provide the broad legislative power to do this.

We propose to introduce a regulation that would nullify any bans on invoice assignment terms in business to business commercial contracts. We want to know your views on our proposals, the draft regulations and the costs and benefits of the measure on both companies and the invoice finance market.