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En plein essor depuis la crise de 2007-2008, l’affacturage, c’est-à-dire la gestion et le paiement anticipé des créances, est longtemps resté une technique de financement confidentielle voire cachée. Pourtant, pratique alternative au crédit inter-entreprises, il permet de minimiser les risques liés à l’allongement des délais de paiement et aux créances impayées. En revenant sur les conditions d’implantation de l’affacturage en France au début des années 1960, cet article s’attache à en identifier les enjeux, les principaux acteurs, ainsi que les entreprises qui y recourent. Il apparaît ainsi que les affactureurs américains, soucieux de profiter du programme Kennedy de croissance des exportations, jouent un rôle majeur dans sa réimplantation en Europe lors de la construction du Marché commun. Face à ces initiatives visant la création de nouvelles sociétés de factoring, les autorités financières françaises sont partagées. Les risques d’inflation de crédit à court terme et de « dépersonnalisation » du crédit les conduisent à la plus grande prudence. Mais la nécessité d’encourager les exportations et la modernisation du crédit à court terme aboutissent à sa reconnaissance officielle en 1973. L’affacturage connaît toutefois un développement initial limité voire marginal. Les PME hésitent à utiliser un mode de financement plus coûteux que l’escompte. S’ajoute la crainte de l’immixtion de l’affactureur dans le « secret des affaires ». Aussi les entreprises qui y recourent le font-elles souvent en dernier recours. Devenu dès lors synonyme d’entreprises en difficultés, l’affacturage peine à combler ce déficit d’image. La restauration de cette image, qui soulève la question-clé de l’introduction d’un tiers dans la relation-clients, demeure ainsi jusqu’à aujourd’hui une préoccupation constante des acteurs d’un secteur en pleine mutation.

The emergence of factoring in France, 1961-1973: a marginal sector in search of recognitionFactoring is a debt management and collection method that has been growing significantly since the financial crisis of 2007-2008. It nonetheless remains relatively unknown and is somewhat hidden as a form of business financing. Factoring is an alternative to business-to-business lending and allows companies to insure themselves against late payments and customers insolvency. Today, as in the past, factoring has found it difficult to gain acceptance as a legitimate form of finance. It is thus of interest to return to the early experience of factoring in France and this article identifies the major challenges of its development, the players involved (factors, regulators) and the companies who used it. Firstly, the article shows that American factors played a leading role in setting up new factoring companies in Europe, and that this was linked to the construction of the Common market and the Kennedy export program. The article then explains how, faced with this situation, French financial authorities were reluctant to approve the creation of new factoring companies. Factoring could increase short-term credits and thus inflation and the identification process of the credit recipients would be complex as factoring introduced a third party between the company and its suppliers. Finally, the article explains how French economic priorities for growing exports and modernising short-term credit led to the formal recognition of factoring in 1973. Factoring did not really succeed immediately, however. The small and medium-sized enterprises, which were targeted by the factors, were reluctant to use this form of financing as it was much more expensive than credit discounting. In addition, they were afraid of losing control over the management of client relationships. As a result, companies mostly used factoring in periods of financial stress and factoring thus became a sign of financial difficulty and subsequently developed a poor reputation. Improving this negative image remains the key issue for a sector which is experiencing dramatic change. The challenges faced highlight how difficult it is to involve a third party in a business relationship without altering the trust of customers.