E-sports, a rising industry in which young people sit on chairs and play games against one another, is an industry that will hit US$1 billion in revenue this year. But it is populated by tournament organisers who do not pay their freelancers on time.

This is the first time we’ve heard of this reason – a lower league football club (fourth tier) in England has said it is unable to pay its staff and players because it was still waiting for "international payments" and said Brexit was having an impact on its finances.

We are exploring reverse factoring in this week’s podcast.

RIABU’s Simon Littlewood and Mark Laudi talk about why some companies agree to accept a discount for on-time payment, and how to avoid giving discounts in the future.

SMEs in India take longer to pay, and they take longer to get paid. And SMEs are borrowing to pay for late payments. And on top of that they have to pay GST for any transactions. This cycle of bad payments is creating a lot of stress on companies.

RIABU went to this year’s Singapore Fintech Festival at Singapore Expo, and we found a lot of platforms that want to lend money to SMEs according to their algorithms.

But none has promised to help SMEs get paid faster. And we know most of the SMEs that need the money will still not be able to make the credit score of these fintech lenders.

RIABU’s Simon Littlewood and Mark Laudi talk about why the human touch is still important in this age of AI and automation.

KYC, or Know Your Customer, is a process businesses go through to verify the identity of their clients.

This can be a serious matter as companies that do not do their due diligence and get to the bottom of their customers’ dealings run the risk of being culpable in court if they are found to be involved in money laundering or terrorist financing.

Now, as if it is not complicated enough, banks, insurers and financial institutions are demanding that their companies provide information on their customers, and their customer’s customers, thereby extending the acronym to KYCC (Know Your Customer’s Customer).

RIABU’s Mark Laudi and Simon Littlewood discuss whether businesses are really heeding the call to do more due diligence on their customers.

The protests in Hong Kong, which have been going on for almost five months, are taking a toll on the city’s economy and local businesses. According to the government, retail sales in August fell 23% from a year earlier and were the worst on record.

RIABU’s Simon Littlewood and Mark Laudi talk about what SMEs that are suffering in Hong Kong’s economic climate can do to reduce their risk in such a tough situation where their customers are likely struggling as much as them.

About 920 Malaysian contractors are missing payments of around RM 52 million. And politician Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong has questioned why there are delays in payments made to these contractors who built houses as part of the government’s RMR1M project.

The construction industry in the US is suffering from 51 days sales outstanding, the longest of any industry in the country, according to a report by construction finance software platform Rabbet.

RIABU’s Simon Littlewood and Mark Laudi talk about what we learned at the Global SME Finance Forum in Amsterdam.

Our wide-ranging discussion includes reverse factoring, how banks must now do more than just lend money to SMEs, and various ways to extend lending to SMEs. We also asked the question of whether women get their invoices paid faster.