Specialty finance group Liberty Financial yesterday launched an invoice discount product, Liberty Receivables Finance, adding to its current range of business lending products that include commercial mortgages and hire purchase agreements for car purchases. Unlike major banks, which lend a maximum 80 per cent of the invoice total, and finance companies which advance up to 90 per cent, Liberty Financial will provide funding levels to a maximum of 95 per cent for borrowings from $250,000 to $15 million or more (based on annual turnover).The factoring and discounting turnover for Australia and New Zealand has doubled in the three years to September 2006 to $12 billion, with discounting being the more popular vehicle totalling around $11 billion.Liberty's general manager of business finance, Winston Nesfield, said business was overly dependent on finance secured by property. Nesfield said: "If you look at SME and mid-tier companies, receivables are often their biggest asset after equity."Nesfield said Liberty expected to be able to match overdraft financing rates on some deals.Receivables financing provides funds against receivables, providing a flexible level of funding that is driven by business turnover, compared to set levels previously agreed to by a bank.An invoice will be accepted as an asset, with the funding method allowing acquisitions, refinancing, seasonal and growth funding requirements to be met easily and efficiently, by removing the uncertainty of renewal terms with more common overdraft structures and facilities.Receivables finance is also known by the terms debtor or cashflow finance, and involves two methods known as factoring and discounting. Discounting involves turning unpaid invoices into cash by effectively selling unpaid invoices to the finance company buying the debt. Factoring also involves selling the unpaid invoices but the purchasing company will also manage the collection of accounts and the sales ledger.Nesfield said one of Liberty's advantages was its new servicing platform, which would improve customer service and help keep pricing competitive."The days of qualifying for funding by faxing through or entering reams of invoice data into your financier's system are over. "Liberty will provide customers with access to its receivables software to facilitate the transfer of accounting data to calculate loan levels, with the added bonus of helping to identify and collect on their problem accounts more effectively."Automation will also give us a pricing advantage."Liberty is backed by investment banks including Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Macquarie Bank. Liberty managing director Sherman Ma said funding for the new product would be available from Liberty's existing funding programs."It will piggy-back off our existing funding arrangements," Ma said.Liberty will complement its broker distribution network with a direct sales team to sell the new product. It is the group's first use of direct sales.