To ski pass

The form of payment consisting of the generation of a payment commitment document by an exporting agent and its assignment to a financial institution is called a forfait. He ensures that he receives the amount of the operation and transfers the risk to said third party.

The payment to forfait, also known as forfaiting, supposes a way of guarantee for the export regarding the collection of its sales, especially if they are made with international shipments.

Although exporting companies gain in terms of security with this type of collection practices, they must assume lower amounts than they would have with a direct payment method.

This is because there are associated operating costs and they are considered service commissions for the entity that assumes the risk. Most of these risks go hand in hand with the possibility of future defaults by the importer or incurred administrative costs or problems with international exchange rates.

Origin of the ski pass payment method

In the last twentieth century, and thanks to the proliferation of commercial channels at a global level, exporting and importing countries required new credit or financial tools that were adjusted to the nature of their economic activity.

In addition to forfaiting, other economic phenomena such as factoring were born to respond to the new needs of foreign trade.

In this sense, there was a need for periods for credit payments of longer duration than usual in commerce, located between 90 and 180 days, and with protection by financial institutions to ensure the security of operations or transactions. commercial.

Characteristics of ski pass payments

The commercial forfaiting payment methodology has a series of features to take into account when defining it:

• In its basic scheme, it converts a payment operation in the long term into a short one, by assuming the collection rights as its own and releasing the exporter. He receives his payment in cash once the cost of the operation has been subtracted.
• It is common to use payment commitment documents such as bills of exchange or promissory notes.
• It is normally used for commercial operations of export and import of goods between different continents (due to their difficult logistics and transport) or between countries with different political and economic regulations (the collection of the sale is guaranteed by placing the risk in the entity financial).
• Taking into account the nature of the merchandise in question or the origin of the export, the credit institutions will establish different conditions, taking into account the level of risk for non-payment that is assumed.

Example of payment to ski pass

Suppose we want to export tomatoes to China. To ensure payment, what we will do is generate a document. With this document, the financial institution (if it accepts us) will pay us the equivalent of the amount that we have invoiced. At the same time, the financial institution becomes a creditor of the Chinese company. Therefore, the Chinese company will have to pay the bank now and not us (we have already received the payment). In this way, we eliminate the risk of default. Of course, the financial institution will offer us a lower amount to obtain a profit from assuming that risk.

For example, if the total sale is $ 2,000, the financial institution will give us 1,900. We secure payment and they earn the difference ($ 100) for taking that risk.

It is a payment method very similar to factoring, with the difference that a fixed interest rate and a pre-established commission are applied to the forfait payment regardless of the due date of the payment.