FlexiFin co-founder Alex Kelaiditis on the fintech’s next chapter as it merges with Alpha Bank’s ABC Factors

“The key factors,” says Alex Kelaiditis, co-founder of FlexFin, on the reasons behind its acquisition by Alpha Bank, “were a combination of our technology and our business model, which together make us more flexible and geared towards small and medium-sized enterprises.”

Founded in 2017 by Kelaiditis and his lifelong friend Dimitris Vranopoulos, FlexFin dragged a financial relic – factoring dates back to Mesopotamia – into the digital age. The fintech gave SMEs in Cyprus and Greece a financial lifeline in two of the worst places in Europe to be waiting on a late invoice (in 2019, the average delay was 79 and 94 days, respectively, per the ECB). Beyond advancing cash, FlexFin also handled the collection, management, and monitoring of receivables via its own platform.

When FlexFin launched, factoring penetration in Cyprus and Greece stood at 13% and 11%, respectively. Kelaiditis, speaking to GOLD some years ago, predicted these numbers would climb as banking systems consolidated and product lines cannibalised each other. He was right. The Cyprus financial industry experienced one of its biggest shake-ups with Eurobank’s acquisition of Hellenic Bank, the country’s second-biggest lender, and by 2023, factoring had grown to 16% in Cyprus and 12.7% in Greece. “This space is a key focus area for the bank, a space with massive growth potential,” he explains.

The fintech’s next chapter will see it merge with Alpha Bank’s ABC Factors, creating a single factoring entity for the group that combines the best of both worlds: the size, history, and financial firepower of ABC Factors with the technology, innovation, and client-centric agility of FlexFin. “We’re confident the merged entity will be a reference point for factoring in the region. We’re also very excited to be involved in the management of the combined entity after the transaction and apply what we have built to the extensive network of potential clients the bank serves,” Kelaiditis notes.