Optimal Cash Management with Payables Finance

Payables finance, also known as reverse factoring or supply chain finance, is a form of trade finance offered by a bank that provides a supplier with the option to receive a buyer’s payables early while allowing the buyer to extend its payment due date. There has been an increasing adoption of payables finance by various industries in recent years. In “Optimal Cash Management with Payables Finance,” X. Yan, L. Chen, and X. Ding characterize the supplier’s optimal cash policy under the payables finance arrangement with a buyer and a bank. The authors show that it is the supplier’s future cash flow uncertainty, together with the supplier’s risk averseness, that drives the cash liquidity value of payables finance. Numerical results of applying the analysis to data sets obtained from a major U.S. chemical company suggest that adopting payables finance can generate considerable value for the company and its suppliers.