Tuesday 11th March, 2014

New research from payments service provider, WorldPay has found that small and microbusiness could be owed as much as £2.5bn by late paying customers, putting many of them at risk of going under and/or extreme difficulty maintaining the right levels of corporate liquidity.

The research found that 75% of the 1,000 respondents had at least one late payment in the last year, and most write off an average of almost £800 per year in payments they consider unlikely ever to be paid. Those in the construction business are amongst the worst affected, with up to 90% receiving payments late. 45% of respondents admitted to having experienced cash-flow problems.

A third of suppliers said that a fear of damaging the relationship and of perhaps being seen as risky, stopped them from chasing the payments effectively.