Finance brokers are failing to capitalise on recent growth in the receivables finance market, it has been claimed.

According to the Institute of Factors and Discounters (IFD), total receivables finance business grew 6% to $15.2bn in the three months to June of this year. On an annual basis, total receivables finance provided to businesses from June 2010 to June 2011 was $60.6bn.

IFD chairman Tony Della Maddalena said the growth was due to small to medium enterprises in Australia continuing to experience a challenging cash flow environment.

"The $60 billion in receivables finance accessed by 5000 businesses during the last 12 months has greatly assisted particularly SMEs by leveraging their debtors book for cash," he said.

Speaking with Australian BrokerNews, Bibby Financial Services national sales manager Gary Green said businesses have been feeling a bit more stressed meeting their financial commitments.

"With increased utilities costs and increased interest rates etcetera, that is causing increased stress to small businesses," he said.

However, finance brokers are failing to capitalise on diversification opportunities presented by the market, according to Green.

"There's certainly specialised commercial and debtor finance brokers out there, but in general we are not finding that finance brokers are really diversifying their income streams by looking at alternatives like debtor finance," he said.

"We both have a lot of work to do - on the finance broking industry side, and also non-bank funders like Bibby - to encourage more interest and uptake of alternative products like debtor finance. We see it as a big opportunity," he said.