The Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) plans to expand the Specialist Automotive Finance (SAF) scheme, according to its head of motor finance, Paul Harrison.
Harrison told Motor Finance he was very pleased with the progress of SAF, which saw the 2,000th showroom to achieve approval under the scheme last week.
Harrison said the aim was to expand this reach and the FLA would now be talking to the top 50 groups, confident SAF would achieve very strong coverage before the year is out.
The trade body then aims to sign up the smaller independents and begin working closely with the Retail Motor Industry Federation, including presentations at the organisations regional dealer group meetings.
SAF is an industry kite mark to show a dealerships staff has fulfilled the FLAs criteria of competency and compliance with consumer credit regulation and has been warmly recognised by both the Financial Ombudsman Service and Parliament. A fifth of all UK dealerships are now SAF-approved including 27 of the 30 largest dealerships.
Further comment from Paul Harrison regarding the Financial Services Authority will be published in the September issue of Motor Finance magazine.

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By GlobalDatarichard.brown@vrlfinancialnews.com