Early Payment of SME Invoices

Today the FT reports that "88 per cent [of traders surveyed] reported bigger companies not paying on time – a factor that 72 per cent said had a serious impact on their business."

Early this year I was involved in discussions about a way for individuals with surplus cash to enable SME's to get their invoices to big corporates paid early - and at rates that are competitive with SME's current financing options, represent a great return on people's spare cash, and allow big corporates - and the public sector - to extend their payment terms. This would be additional to SME's current financing options, rather than interrupting or replacing them.

The parties required to implement the necessary process agreed how it should work in detail. Their remaining challenge was finding the SME-facing brand necessary to market the service effectively. Early discussions with the perfect brand yielded some progress, but ultimately launch depended on another of their initiatives progressing.

One way it could work, in basic terms, is that the supplier offers to assign the invoice to Zopa or a collection agent for the benefit of the Zopa members who chip in to pay it early. Notice would need to be given to the corporate buyer to pay the invoice amount to the Zopa members' account. Someone at Zopa would also need to call the corporate buyer to ensure it was happy with the arrangement and confirm the date the buyer is promising to pay. That promised date could go on the invoice listing. Zopa members could then study the listing and decide what discount rate to offer (credit reference data would be available for those that want it). There would be an auction, so pricing would be very transparent.

There's another model that would work in reverse, with buyers posting invoices it's prepared to pay - with a promised payment date - to suppliers' accounts. The suppliers could then hit a "Pay Me Now" button that takes them to the Zopa site where their invoice could be listed etc. While that model is certainly technologically possible now, I suspect that it would follow once people got the hang of the supplier-driven process.

At any rate, if you're a supplier to big corporates who's frustrated by their extended payment terms, why not contact Zopa and say you're interested in either model I've described?

Maybe the continuing explosion of the late-paying problem, coupled with falling savings rates on people's spare cash, will hasten the implementation of this solution.

Mo-gress

Well, twelve days into Movember and the photos just don't do my effort any justice at all, so I won't repeat them here.

In fact, my mo' is much more visible than the camera suggests, and such an eyesore that I have to creep home at night. Young ladies are beginning to give me very strange looks indeed, when they used not to notice at all. Young men run away. Dogs cross the street, and cats hiss.

Bring on the 30th faster, I say.

In the meantime, you can donate to The Prostate Cancer Charity by clicking here and using your credit card, or by writing a cheque payable to ‘The Prostate Cancer Charity Re: Movember', referencing my Registration Number 1586826 and mailing it to:

The Prostate Cancer Charity
First Floor Cambridge House
100 Cambridge Grove
Hammersmith
London W6 OLE

The money raised by Movember is used to raise awareness of men's health issues and donated to The Prostate Cancer Charity which will have an enormous impact on many men's lives and the awareness will help us to fight prostate cancer on every front - through research, support, information and campaigning.

Did you know...

• Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK. 35,000 men are diagnosed every year and one man dies every hour.
  

• 1 in 11 UK men will be diagnosed in their lifetime.

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had.

London's Super Sewer - Pro or Con?

I never thought I'd be giving a hat-tip to Hammersmith & Fulham Council, but thankfully its Leader has warned residents of the £2.2bn "Super Sewer" that Thames Water plans to build under the Thames.

Somehow I'd missed all the kerfuffle.

Not content with writing to residents, the Council has also launched a petition that's been signed by over 1,500 people, and we are invited to a public meeting on the subject at Hammersmith Town Hall, King Street, on Monday 17 November 2008, at 7.00pm.

The Council is concerned that the Super Sewer is the "wrong solution to the wrong problem", is too costly (adding £200 p.a. to water bills), too disruptive (8 years of construction), will destroy open space, and is merely designed to avoid EU pollution fines that are open to challenge in any event. It recommends an independent study to review the problem, solutions and alternatives.

I confess to being somewhat perplexed, and would be interested to get a balanced view before choosing "sides", even if backing the Council only results in an independent study. It would be nice to see a concise summary of the problem, it's size, root causes and possible solutions - though not while eating a curry.

Having been less than impressed at the investment in maintaining London's creaking infrastructure to date, I'm wary of undermining Thames Water's enthusiasm on that front without a very good reason.

But the Council did a great job in opposing the West London Tram, and has shown itself to be very effective in arousing public support on this occasion too. Maybe it's on the right track again, if you'll excuse the pun.

Looks like I'll have to turn up to the debate.

Movember

One of the er... upsides to working in a client's offices with lots of people is participating in their crazy schemes.

So, during Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'm growing a Mo. I'm doing this, it says here, because I'm passionate about tackling men's health issues and being proactive in the fight against prostate cancer - the most common cancer in men in the UK.

But I'm really doing it for the cringing sense of embarrassment the new Mo grower gets from watching the eyes of the person he's speaking to being drawn irresistibly to the mangy spider materialising on his upper lip. And from feeling the inevitable question grow throughout the conversation until his victim is obliged to enquire, "What the hell is that?" Or worse.

You can donate to my Mo by clicking here and using your credit card, or by writing a cheque payable to ‘The Prostate Cancer Charity Re: Movember', referencing my Registration Number 1586826 and mailing it to:

The Prostate Cancer Charity
First Floor Cambridge House
100 Cambridge Grove
Hammersmith
London W6 OLE

The money raised by Movember is used to raise awareness of men's health issues and donated to The Prostate Cancer Charity which will have an enormous impact on many men's lives and the awareness will help us to fight prostate cancer on every front - through research, support, information and campaigning.

Did you know...

• Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK. 35,000 men are diagnosed every year and one man dies every hour.
  

• 1 in 11 UK men will be diagnosed in their lifetime.

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had.

How to Disable Phorm

I looked at Phorm in February and again in June, but not really wearing my consumer hat. Now I have an unwelcome opportunity to do just that.

You see, I'm a BT broadband subscriber with multiple users at home, some of whom may not be all that, ahem, technologically inclined. So I'm a bit paranoid that, while I'm not aware of having been asked or consented to using Phorm (branded "WebWise"), other users may have inadvertently switched it on in the course of a BT trial.

Why I am paranoid? Well the service is basically designed to track the browsing habits of all users of the broadband-connected PC or laptop and use this to send more targeted advertising, so that BT and Phorm can make money out of you. But I don't just "browse", I research stuff, work and look after my financial affairs. Other users in the house from time to time will do the same. I don't want this stuff tracked, scanned or whatever else Phorm or BT plan to do with it. And I don't want to be pestered by ads, especially ones that may have nothing do with my real interests. I don't consider that I have a relationship with BT when I use my broadband to access the internet. I permission or de-permission cookies or accept marketing bumph from each of the site I'm happy to deal with. And so on.

I've now done what any good consumer should do. I've looked at the BT WebWise site and even the audit report from Ernst & Young (the mere fact that an audit report is felt necessary chills me to the bone). While these purport to tell me what Phorm is or isn't doing, it doesn't explain BT's role or the data it has access to and retains, or what BT is getting out of using Phorm. The BT terms and conditions (clause 18) aren't exactly encouraging on this point. In fact they are so lacking in material information that they deserve further consideration in light of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (which I perhaps rather hastily lampooned - but hey, if they're there, use them). The killer is that the mere presence of this unwelcome "service" casts on me an obligation to constantly police my own computer and all its users to ensure that we're opted-out and remain opted-out. It would be too much to hope that the anti-virus software providers will create a Phorm-killer.

Let's be clear. BT needs to persuade me, as its customer, to opt-in to taking this additional "service". It's not for BT to use my broadband connection to build relationships with people who aren't the accountholder, and get me to police their opt-in/opt-out. It must be BT's problem to ensure that if I don't opt-in (or if I do, but opt-out later) that the effective opt-out works for everybody on my connection all the time.

And to have any chance of persuading me to opt-in, BT must specify in more detail the nature of the data that will be obtained, all the proposed uses of that data, what I am going to receive in return (and don't say targeted ads - show me the reduction in the price of broadband to reflect your opportunity to gain ad revenue), and how I can opt-out and have that data deleted. From a personal standpoint, the "WebWise" service doesn't go far enough in this regard for me to trust it. Nor should the current level of disclosure be enought for BT to be able to claim they have my consent to thing under the Data Protection Act - I simply don't consent, anyway.

So, not trusting BT on the particular issue of how to stay opted out, I did a quick Google search hoping to learn how you would really know that you were not signed up, and how to switch it off completely. No luck.

The Register, which has done a lot of digging on Phorm in the past, and got a very concerning post from Chris Williams on 3 October. According to Chris' discussions with BT, they seem to track your usage whether you're opted in or out... so they can record whether you have opted in or out. You then simply have to trust that they won't sell or otherwise use your data to get extra ad revenue, fall victim to organised criminals, or allow the authorities to mash it with the Communications Database (you'll recall that the UK government has been particularly supportive of Phorm).

All the technical detail is in Richard Clayton's excellent piece on Phorm. His research suggests that you can add the Fraud Act, Computer Misuse Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to your reading list before deciding whether or not to sign up to WebWise. And even intellectual property rights owners have a serious set of bones to pick, as Nicholas Bohm and Joel Harrison have fulsomely discussed in their excellent September article for the Society for Computers and Law. But none of that is going to occur to the average consumer, so why is the government not taking their corner instead of Phorm's..?

Who knows. For my money, it's time to switch broadband providers.

Speaking of which, I see that Orange is attempting to make a virtue out of not using Phorm.