Faced with the ever-increasing volume of data, the real challenge is no longer to collect more, but to know which data to use and how to action it. Whether managing a global portfolio or automotive financing, Ipsen (a global biopharmaceutical group) and Credipar (a subsidiary of Banque Stellantis France) face different realities but share a common experience: the added value of integrating Coface data and scores into their decision-making processes to mitigate commercial risk without closing off business opportunities.
Data: a shared language of risk
For a medium-sized international group such as Ipsen, which generates over 90% of its turnover outside France – mainly in the United States, Asia and Latin America – financial information is an integral part of credit risk management.
The Group no longer uses trade credit insurance, due to a low level of claims in its customer portfolio, but continues to monitor the financial health of its active customers. The biopharmaceutical company now relies on Coface Business Information’s solutions to address three major business challenges:
1- Expanding the portfolio of active clients to be monitored beyond that previously covered by trade credit insurance.
2- Informing the entire Ipsen community of experts who exploit financial information: finance, operations and sales teams.
3- Strengthening the vigilance of Ipsen’s experts regarding customers with the highest risk exposures, for whom monitoring must be intensified.
However, managing risk in an international context first requires a shared understanding of the data and a consistent use of financial information across countries, subsidiaries, and the Group’s finance and sales teams. The financial information collected by Ipsen is therefore not used solely to assess its active clients: it also builds a common referential framework and enables analysis to be focused on the most sensitive exposures.
Our aim is to avoid, above all, a fragmented and intuitive approach to data usage. Beyond its intrinsic value, Coface data – which is consistent worldwide – enables us to establish a common framework, a reference point shared by the various teams.
This helps them to focus their expertise and efforts where the risk is most sensitive,
states Estelle Gazin – VP Treasury, Financing and Credit Management – Ipsen.
A subsidiary of Banque Stellantis France specialising in automotive finance (for private individuals and companies), Credipar manages €13 billion in outstanding debt. With a different challenge: here, Coface data is used to enhance both automated decisions and the manual decisions of credit analysts. Via the Coface API, three indicators are integrated into Credipar’s information systems:
- the Score, which assesses the probability of payment default over a one-year period on a scale of 0 to 10;
- the Late Payment Index, based on historical payment behaviour;
- the Credit Opinion, which corresponds to the maximum recommended level of exposure.
Even though we use other external information sources, such as those from the Banque de France, Coface’s data provides a more comprehensive view of our counterparties’ situation.
Urba360 is a powerful decision-support tool for our credit analysts in the manual decision-making process. We also use the Coface API, which is directly integrated into our information systems, to automate some of our decisions.
explainsNhat Do – SME Risk Manager at Credipar.
The criteria that matter for getting smart data
The abundance of financial information – which is now bigger than ever for companies to manage – guarantees neither its quality nor its usefulness. Internationally, sources, formats and publication schedules vary. At Ipsen, the focus is on data quality: reliable information, regularly updated and assessed using a consistent scoring system, regardless of the debtor’s country, is the fundamental basis on which to make a decision.
Data quality goes hand in hand with regular updates: indeed, a client in good financial health at a given moment may be in a much worse position very shortly afterwards.
We therefore need to be able to incorporate these parameters almost in real time throughout the entire risk assessment process.
The fact that Coface uses the same data for its trade credit insurance operations as the data they provide to us is reassuring
says Estelle Gazin – VP Treasury, Financing and Credit Management – Ipsen.
For Credipar, the main challenge lies in data access and collection. Publicly available data on companies in this sector remains limited, incomplete or too neutral to inform a decision. Cross-referencing multiple indicators therefore helps to reduce these blind spots.
By combining Coface’s indicators and data, we eliminate these blind spots. The aim is not to have more data, but to base our decisions on much more relevant data,
states Nhat Do – SME Risk Manager at Credipar.
Coface Score: a decision-support tool and automation solution
Fully integrated into the company’s decision-making processes, the Coface score is a decision-support tool used by Ipsen’s teams from the very first stage of the order-to-cash cycle, when analysing the credit limits granted to counterparties. For a new client, Ipsen uses the Coface Score to adjust the credit limit upwards or downwards, based on the client’s turnover and payment terms.
The Group then monitors changes in this score for its counterparties throughout the life of the contract, particularly in the event of a deterioration, in order to take the necessary measures in accordance with its own warning thresholds:
- score below 3: situation requiring serious investigation; a decision may be taken but must be justified,
- score between 5 and 8: considered a satisfactory range,
- score above 8: a comfortable range, offering greater flexibility.
A low score is not necessarily a deal-breaker and does not automatically lead to a refusal. However, it is a sufficiently significant signal to trigger further analysis, to better document and justify a decision, and to discuss directly with our clients their financial statements and current situation.
On the other hand, as we observed that the scores derived from financial information were more conservative than those provided by the trade credit insurer, a good Coface score gives us a high level of confidence – and therefore greater comfort – enabling us to make decisions much more quickly,
according to Estelle Gazin – VP Treasury, Financing and Credit Management – Ipsen.
For its part, Credipar goes one step further in integrating the Coface score into its operations: the indicators continuously feed into the automated decision-making tool, leading to 100% automated approval once the confidence level is sufficient. The data and the Coface score flag really risky customers when other sources are silent, and in some cases facilitate the approval of profiles that would otherwise be judged risky without this additional insight.
The Coface score and its automation within our systems are not solely intended to better spot risky profiles.
It also enables us to make better approval decisions, particularly those that would otherwise have been rejected due to a lack of sufficient or reliable information,
says Nhat Do – SME Risk Manager at Credipar.
The ultimate ROI: providing protection without blocking business
Within the biopharmaceutical group Ipsen, the credit function does not position itself as a barrier, but as a business partner that supports the company’s commercial development. Data underpins decision-making without replacing judgement: teams may deviate from the score, provided their decision is documented and the reasoning justified.
Using Coface data and scores helps our credit management teams to fully embrace their role: protecting the company by safeguarding its assets, such as trade receivables,
states Estelle Gazin – VP Treasury, Financing and Credit Management – Ipsen.
At Credipar, the outcome of integrating Coface indicators has been positive, and the measured results go far beyond simply reducing bad debts; this is reflected in particular by a 2.5-point increase in the automatic approval rate across the entire SME segment, without any deterioration in the risk level.
Coface’s data and score enable us not only to better identify the riskiest companies, but also to target those with a favourable risk profile, for whom we can facilitate the financing decision,
explains Nhat Do – SME Risk Manager at Credipar.
This is what makes all the difference: better information based on reliable, up-to-date and actionable data isn’t just about saying ‘no’. It helps build a secure ‘yes’, speed up straightforward decisions and safeguard solid growth opportunities.
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