How to Mitigate the Risk of Late Payments? The Case of the Largest Polish Companies Selling Electricity in 2018–2023

Anna Olkiewicz ()
Additional contact information
Anna Olkiewicz: Department of Economy, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Koszalin University of Technology, Kwiatkowskiego 6E, 75-343 Koszalin, Poland

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 8, 1-23

Abstract: Companies operating in the energy market in Poland conduct business activity on the basis of special regulations applicable to this type of entity. However, they are, like any other entrepreneur, exposed to the risk of delays in payments, non-payment, restructuring, or even bankruptcy of their contractor. Appropriate instruments should be used to mitigate these risks. There are many methods available today to deal with trading risks. However, they should be tailored to the individual needs of each entrepreneur based on an in-depth analysis of its contractors. This article analyzes the five largest companies selling electricity in Poland in terms of the risk of late payments in the period 2018–2023. It turned out that in the surveyed companies in the period 2018–2013, the amount of receivables was constantly increasing, and the average recovery term was longer than the average payment term in enterprises in general. The real impact of delayed payments on the profitability of the surveyed companies was also calculated. Then, the available methods of transaction risk mitigation (tangible collateral, personal collateral, form of paying, other legal, banking and insurance instruments) were analyzed and described, and whether and to what extent they are used in the surveyed companies. The conducted research also allowed the author to conclude that, unfortunately, despite the existence of many instruments, they are not used due to the costs and formalities associated with their acquisition.

Keywords: late payment risk; payment security; terms of payment in the energy sector; receivables; obligations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/8/1918/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/8/1918/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:8:p:1918-:d:1631449

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().