Startup brings Receivables Exchange to Zim; Now you can sell your invoices

L.S.M Kabweza Avatar
Harare Receivables Exchange

Harare Receivables ExchangeIf you run a business in Zimbabwe, or anywhere in the world for the matter, you know that getting the much sought after order to supply a large company is a great deal for your business. But that it’s also not. In fact, if you’re a startup that big order can be the end of you.

It’s a great deal because if they pay you on time, you’re in cashflow heaven. But they rarely do hey. Their payment cycles are 30 days if you’re lucky, otherwise it’s 60 or even 90 days. And even then, they almost always never stick to it. They are elephants, and it’s deadly business hunting them.

A new startup, Harare Receivables Exchangehas launched to take away that elephant hunting pain. They’ll make sure that you‘re paid on time. They do it by providing a marketplace for your invoices; an online market where buyers will bid for your invoices, pay you immediately, and then they get paid later when your elephant finally releases the money. Buyers bid in real time much like eBay. HRE itself is modelled after US based The Receivables Exchange.

How it works is that an invoice seller registers on the platform and after verification by HRE, their account is approved. The seller can then upload invoices for auction on the platform and they determine the terms of the auction; i.e. the length, minimum price, buyout price etc… Once the invoice is live, buyers (who also have to be registered with HRE) then bid for it. The winning bidder then pays for the invoice with HRE managing the exchange of funds between buyer and seller. Eventually when the invoiced company release payment, the money is paid to the buyer through HRE, who take their commission.

It is important to note here that the seller still has the responsibility to chase after their payment. HRE just helps them get the money much sooner but the responsibility to ensure the invoiced company eventually pays still lies with the seller. In fact, bad invoices or invoices that are paid way beyond the time period offered attract penalties to the seller.

We had the opportunity to sample HRE some weeks back. Going through the application and talking with the co-founder and CEO, Takudzwa Chinhengo, you could easily see how it’s crucial to the liquidity problem in the market. But whether they’ll manage to do it successfully is a wait and see. We surely hope they do. You can read about the HRE team here.

4 comments

  1. From Where

    haha look at the turner over you need p/a to register as seller 100k and minimum amount must be 5k per invoice to auction.

  2. Gweja

    great idea, but how about a simple site name… hre.co.zw

  3. Time

    Yes great idea indeed but I think the Zim market for this type of service is still in its infancy. First of all the seller requirements are for companies that are mostly, lets face it, run by 60year old dinosaurs at the top. So good luck getting them to use your platform as they’ll have a finall say in what their $100000 businesses do no matter how convenient your solution seems to the young guys at the bottom of the ladder.

    Maybe the service should target small to medium enterprises? So that’ll mean drastically lowering your registration requirements. Sure it’ll take alot of time to recoup your investment (I can only imagine what you paid C2 for development) but in the long run when the economy is running on all fours you’ll begin to see the fruits of your labour and have a sizeable chunk of the market share.

  4. Lupo

    I suppose I’m not the target market because I did not get a word in their elevator pitch

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