MMK and Kontur report results of successful collaboration on the Kontur.Factoring electronic platform

Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) has been operating in the factoring services market since 2011. The number of factors and counterparties increases every year. At the same time, document turnover is also growing, which entails increased time spent on processing, signing and sending documents for transactions. In 2018, to speed up document flow and to optimise the process for factoring transactions, MMK was the first Russian steelmaker to outsource the conclusion of factoring transactions to the Kontur.Factoring electronic platform developed by the Russian company Kontur. In 2018, MMK used the platform to conclude transactions as a client, and since 2019, the plant has also been working with Kontur.Factoring as a supplier.

In the three years of its operation, the number of counterparties has increased to 93. The counterparties concluded more than 7,000 transactions electronically, and the total turnover exceeded RUB 37 billion, of which more than RUB 24 billion was concluded in 2020. (This figure is 12 times greater than in 2018).

Suppliers working on the e-platform are now able to sign notices and registers in an electronic standardised format, to transmit documents to factors in an automated format from Kontur, and to switch to another factor quickly if necessary, without changing the process of assigning an obligation and financing.

For the buyer, the advantages of the new approach are the ability to control the assignment process by confirming deliveries on the Kontur.Factoring platform, as well as the timely disclosure of information about the assigned monetary claims.

In 2020, MMK refined its corporate accounting system for factoring transactions and created robots that solve typical tasks of data exchange between the site and the accounting system. This allowed the Company to automate processes and speed up financing. The improvements helped to make use of digital factoring capabilities with maximum efficiency and optimised the work of MMK employees.

MMK plans to further automate data exchange between the platform and the Company, set up work via API and automate confirmation of deliveries to subsidiaries, which will reduce the number of manual operations and expand factoring opportunities for MMK subsidiaries.