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The UK’s Late Payments Reckoning: Turning Regulation into a Cash Flow Advantage

When late means lost

Across the UK, late payments have become a way of doing business, and a dangerous one.
According to the 2025 Coface UK Payment Survey, 9 out of 10 companies now face overdue invoices, with delays averaging 32 days past due. Nearly half of all payment delays are tied to customer liquidity stress, while 10% stem from buyers intentionally postponing settlement.

The result is a silent drag on cash flow. Even firms that grew revenue in 2024 are finding less liquidity on hand as working capital cycles stretch and write-offs increase. Insolvencies remain 30% higher than before 2019, and Coface warns that payment morale continues to weaken in sectors such as construction and automotive, where long project cycles amplify the risk.

For CFOs and Credit Managers, this is more than an annoyance. It is a structural challenge, and one that regulation alone will not fix.

Structure creates stability

In December 2024, the UK government introduced the Fair Payment Code alongside new Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance Regulations (2024 Amendment). The reforms require large businesses to disclose their average payment times and strengthen transparency across supply chains.

On paper, that is progress.
In practice, structure only creates stability when it is supported by systems that act on it.
This is where the first of MaxCredible’s Seven Pillars for Unlocking Cash Flow, Automation, becomes essential.

Automation ensures compliance and consistency in a way no manual process can:

  • Standardized journeys apply equal rules for first, second, and final reminders, protecting supplier relationships while ensuring fairness.

  • Integrated audit trails provide the reporting transparency that new regulations demand.

  • Automated escalation ensures overdue invoices do not hide in inboxes; they move.

When the market enforces transparency, automation enforces reliability.
And reliability is what stabilizes cash.

From compliance to competition

Coface’s research shows that regulation is already shifting expectations.
72% of UK firms believe the new payment rules will improve cash flow, not through penalties but through better visibility. Yet visibility alone will not close the gap between knowing and acting.

In many industries, the real divide is between those who see risk and those who respond to it in time.
Companies that still rely on static DSO reports or email-based follow-ups are already falling behind. Leaders are moving toward real-time insight and automated response, where invoice data and customer behavior trigger next actions automatically.

This reflects the second pillar from our framework, Insight and Transparency.
When data is unified across systems, you do not just comply with disclosure laws; you outperform them.
You can see exactly which customers stretch payment terms, how often promises break, and where dispute patterns emerge before they hit your P&L.

Cash control meets AI

What the new UK regulations do not require, but forward-looking finance teams are already using, is AI.

Artificial intelligence now adds foresight to what used to be hindsight.
Within MaxCredible, AI capabilities support three breakthroughs directly linked to the challenges Coface describes:

  • Cash-in forecasting: spotting payment slowdowns early by comparing customer segments, behavior trends, and promise-to-pay accuracy.

  • Dispute triage and summaries: automatically identifying root causes such as logistics or pricing issues and routing them to the right owner before they delay cash.

  • Exposure tuning: recommending safe credit-limit adjustments based on combined internal and external data such as D&B and Altares.

For industries like construction or automotive, where Coface found the longest average delays, this is not theory. It is a survival strategy.
AI does not replace the credit manager’s judgment; it sharpens it with better timing and context.

The solution: resilience through intelligent automation

The late-payment problem will not disappear with new laws.
Coface notes that insolvency rates, though stabilizing, remain structurally high, and 43% of UK firms still cite buyers’ financial distress as their main challenge. That means finance leaders must look beyond compliance toward control, reducing their dependence on buyer behavior by improving their own process discipline.

That is where MaxCredible’s approach stands out.
By combining automation, insight, and AI within one workflow, you:

  • Replace reactive chasing with predictive actions.

  • Ensure audit-proof transparency for regulators and stakeholders.

  • Deliver a consistent, branded customer experience even in collections.

  • Free up finance teams to manage risk strategically instead of manually.

In short, you build a process that works even when markets do not.

Resilience is the new compliance

The UK’s new Fair Payment Code sets the floor, not the ceiling.
Companies that stop at compliance will protect reputation; those that go further will protect cash.

MaxCredible’s clients already prove it. Structure and automation deliver measurable results: lower DSO, fewer write-offs, and smoother communication across departments. In a landscape where payment delays are becoming the norm, that is how you stay liquid while others tighten.

The real lesson of 2025?
Resilience is not built by regulation; it is built by design.

Turn compliance into cash flow

Discover how automation, AI, and proactive risk control work together in MaxCredible’s full framework:
👉 The Seven Pillars for Unlocking Cash Flow