Bartercard Continental Europe
& Commercial Brokers

June 2, 2021
by Sérgio Lopo, Managing Director, Bartercard Continental Europe
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Brokers or ‘commercial intermediaries’ help their clients to find solutions to a variety of business sourcing tasks and mediate solutions between buyers and sellers. Among the solutions they most frequently mediate include client acquisition, investment intermediation, commercial transactions, and advice on underwriting risk and financing services.

The service provided has evolved a lot in the last decades, adding specialized consulting, management of intermediated services and products on behalf of their clients, and in some cases the creation of products and services on their own behalf, which in these situations replace pure intermediation.

Although there are large intermediation companies, this activity is very distributed, in the sense that there are many small companies and even individuals providing some of the services listed and a large local coverage. If the large intermediaries are very focused on large and medium-sized companies (especially multinationals), the small intermediaries have a very strong local base, a close knowledge of this reality, and are focused on the segment of micro and small enterprises.

While the range of services is quite varied, they are commonly associated with the insurance sector and increasingly with customer’s account optimization solutions: general and specific insurance, credit insurance, and factoring. In short, we associate a lot the service provided by Brokers with advising and risk management - the intermediation has a very important role in advising and finding the best solutions for their clients to mitigate their risks.

If we recover the initial spirit of the role of a commercial intermediary in supporting the acquisition of new clients with its modernization in facilitating commercial transactions and risk management, we get closer to the main objectives of a Barter, namely the Bartercard model.

In the Bartercard model there is a focus on the creation of a platform of members with the objective of maintaining commercial exchanges among themselves, thus increasing their sales and taking advantage of excess stock and production capacity, and also that these exchanges are made in a secure manner, mitigating credit risk, since the risk is shared by the network and the receipt of the sale value coincides with the moment of execution of the transaction. One of the most important roles in Barter is undoubtedly the proactive role of the network manager in creating opportunities for companies to transact with each other.

In all new markets where Bartercard intends to establish itself in continental Europe, there are already very professional Brokers. These brokers know the companies and the markets where they operate and have a commercial network that knows and accompanies their customers.

However if the Brokers added the Barter model to the service they already provide, actively promoting commercial transactions between their Customers, the additional business potential and advantages for all parties involved would be much greater.

However if the Brokers added the Barter model to the service they already provide, actively promoting commercial transactions between their Customers, the additional business potential and advantages for all parties involved would be much greater.

Let's see how commercial intermediation companies can benefit from barter:

  • Monetize new business relationships between their customers.
  • They provide a new service that mitigates credit risk and facilitates cash-flow, which can be complementary or alternative to the solutions they currently advise their clients on.
  • They now have concrete information about the behavior of companies in their commercial transactions, enriching the information made available.
  • They add value to the economy, facilitating commercial transactions between companies, many of which, due to their size, are at the margin of traditional financial/insurance products.

Companies in general benefit from barter by providing:

  • Additional channel for raising business.
  • Access to a tool that allows them to make secure transactions without the use of fiat money, Euros and improve cash flow.
  • Specially designed for SMEs that often do not have access to tools to facilitate credit risk management.

A close collaborative relationship between Bartercard and Brokers, brings these and other advantages to all parties.

Brokerage companies, could count on all the tools, from Bartercard, to launch this new line of business quickly and successfully. These are:

  • Commercial transaction management platform.
  • Online access technology for Customers via web and App.
  • Business and service and/or product directory.
  • Training and support documentation.
  • Support in operationalization and credit risk management.

For us, it is one of the fastest and most effective ways to launch a Bartercard Europe operation in every European country.