The Banking Pool is a report in which companies give a detailed account of all the bank financing products they have contracted, whether they are debts with banks, savings banks or credit cooperatives; in other words, any entity supervised by the Bank of Spain or the European Central Bank.
This is a document that is usually requested from a company when it applies for financing, in order to measure the banking risk of the business and whether the financing requested is viable.
If in its day the Bank Pool was enough to know the financial situation of a company, nowadays the financing channels of companies have evolved and diversified, and the Bank Pool concept has become obsolete.
In this context, the concept of Financial Pool arises, a notion that includes the Banking Pool but extends its definition to all those entities that, not being purely banking, offer alternative financing services, such as factoring, confirming, crowdfactoring or crowdlending, or other non-bank financing entities, such as insurance companies or debt funds, among others.
Having a Financial Pool adequate to the company's needs and with maturities in line with its activity is an indispensable requirement to guarantee the continuity of a company, since even in those with positive growth, poor management of financial resources may hinder its expansion, strain its cash flow, lead to refinancing or, in extreme cases, lead to bankruptcy.
The importance of financial diversification
The concept of the Financial Pool includes the concept of diversification, one of the most widely used strategies to guarantee operational continuity and access to liquidity for companies. Having a diversified financing portfolio is good in any circumstance, but in a context of growth and expansion it is essential.
Why? In a climate of high volatility and uncertainty, banks limit their issuance of credit, so many SMEs and the self-employed are left with a financing gap. The solution lies in the use of non-bank sources of financing, a resource that has experienced a boom in recent years.
In short, the Financial Pool is not only a guide for the company's internal decision-making, but also a letter of introduction that can make the difference between obtaining crucial financing for the company's development or not. On the other hand, the diversification of financial commitments is one of the most important tools for achieving a healthy Financial Pool.
At present, new alternative financing models such as factoring or supplier financing (confirming) allow companies to obtain such financing by collecting their invoices in advance, diversifying their financial pool and providing them with the necessary liquidity to meet their commitments.
In Spain, although alternative financing is growing, the business sector continues to rely mainly on banks to finance its day-to-day business. However, in countries characterized by their business dynamism, such as the United Kingdom and especially the USA, where companies turn to specialized alternative financing institutions to cover part of their specific needs, these institutions are taking an increasingly larger share of the corporate working capital market.
