Coficiné, the cinema and broadcasting bank
Behind the scenes at…
Coficiné, the cinema and broadcasting bank
Interview withCharles Kouroriez, Chief Financial Officer, and Arthur Escalier, Project Manager, who take us behind the scenes at Coficiné and present the integration of the Xloan solution, by Sébastien Brugallé, Financial Software Sales Executive at Xloan byOpen.
After going behind the scenes at France Active Île-de-France, we continue our mini series on lending institutions today with a trip to the silver screen.
Coficiné, the cinema and broadcasting bank
Coficiné is nearly 100 years old. It went through a quiet period before gradually establishing itself as a pioneer in cash flow funding in the European film and broadcasting world.
Coficiné was part of a private industrial group and then of the Deposit and Consignment Office in 1992, before joining the Natixis group in 2000. Thanks to the confidence and support of its parent company and the BPCE group, Coficiné is an independent organisation in its market and has retained the spirit of an SME with about forty employees at present.
Lines of credit managed exceeded one billion euros this year, divided between almost 500 customers for about 800 loans. Almost 40% of its business is carried out abroad. 80% of the loans are for producing film and audiovisual works, 10 to 15% for building and renovating cinemas and 5 to 10% for financing equipment for operations rooms and filming.
Before the clapperboard snaps, risks are taken
Films, TV, theatres… Culture needs money to flourish and the sector prefers to turn to a specialised financier.
Charles Kouroriez, Chief Financial Officer, and Arthur Escalier, Project Manager at Coficiné, agreed to explain how it works:
“A film is a project, and its budget – and therefore the loan – is important for the organisation that owns it. It is therefore essential to have good knowledge of the professionals behind the projects. The involvement of the team and its knowledge of the sector makes it possible to properly assess the risk before making a decision.”
“We work with guarantees and sureties that are specific to the film and audiovisual sector, to adapt the funding to the production cycle of the work,” adds Charles Kouroriez.
Risk control is a central concern. “With production loans, we take a risk regarding the production of the work,” continues Arthur Escalier.
“Our economic model is quite similar to that of property development. Moreover, our previous IT tool was a property development software package, which we adapted for the film industry.”
A new business tool
Xloan, the new business software package chosen by the management team, was designed by and for credit professionals. “This change of IT system had become necessary from a technical point of view. But it also enables us to modernise our practices. Changing the information system provides an opportunity to redesign the company and its organisation more widely.”
There were two main stages in the deployment of Xloan!
1st stage: Include everything in a single tool. The new tool enables the Coficiné team to include everything in a single system, thereby ensuring better loan monitoring. “The information was highly scattered and we wanted to centralise everything. We were also looking for a customisable solution, with a user interface accessible for our employees… and finally a team at the software company that matches ours, to successfully complete the project.”
2nd stage: Offer our customers a digital journey
We completed the tool by acquiring a multichannel portal also supplied by Xloan.
In-house, “it was an important turning point, but in the end the feedback was good: the employees managed to adapt, and we want it to be a long-term tool,” concludes Arthur Escalier. “We have a lot of requirements and specific developments to include in our method of operation: appraisal of projects, tailor-made schedules for release of funds, monitoring of works, taking into account of guarantees, automatic editing of deeds, statements of transactions, monitoring of repayments etc.”
And for our customers, online access to their information makes it really easy to use!
Adapt to production of changing audiovisual content
Current changes in the audiovisual sector were accelerated by the recent crisis due to the pandemic. “Our sector is changing and this change has suddenly accelerated. The arrival of platforms caused a real upheaval both in production and distribution. We are therefore adapting quickly, especially as we are also currently developing at the international level, with specific markets and rules for each geographic zone.”
