Ingram Micro has joined forces with financing provider, Moneytech, to provide new credit terms to its reseller base.
The pair have spent months negotiating the deal and officially unveiled their alliance last week. Ingram CFO, Clive Demaine, said it was initially offering MoneyTech options to resellers with credit limits of $35,000 or less – approximately 3000 partners across Australia.
Resellers can choose from a couple of payment options through Moneytech. They can either stay on a 14-day invoicing period, issued at the end of every month, as is currently offered by Ingram. Or for a monthly accounting keeping fee, they can opt for 30-day payment terms from end-of-month. Ingram will bear the merchant services fee on all transactions.
“It’s about choice for our resellers,” Demaine told ARN. “If they want to continue to pay Ingram directly, that’s fine. It’s about offering another payment option.”
Moneytech gave resellers access to extendable and flexible credit terms, its managing director, Hugh Evans, said. At present, resellers who don’t pay their Ingram invoice within the allotted 14-day period are put on hold. Resellers can also pay invoices with American Express using Moneytech’s PayGate facility – a credit card which is not accepted by Ingram.
Evans was hopeful of converting a significant proportion of Ingram’s smaller resellers to Moneytech. Resellers will be issued with the same level of credit as they are currently entitled to through the distributor, but can apply for up to $250,000 limits.
According to Demaine, the deal also takes some of the credit management risk and cost away from Ingram. In February, the distributor announced it was outsourcing its commercial credit team to Malaysia, retaining skeleton staff in Sydney to manage retail and select customers. For more on this story, check out this week’s edition of ARN.
