Time flies – whether you
are having fun or not. It seems like hardly any time at all has
passed since I wrote, in the Editor’s Letter for the January 2009
edition of Motor Finance, that the motor industry “is in a pretty
pickle”; around that time, Baroness Vadera, under-secretary of
state for business, was being excoriated by the press for saying
that the “green shoots of recovery” could be sighted amid the
damage caused to the national economy by the credit crunch.
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One year later, is it fair to say
that such signs of hope are now visible – and that the Baroness was
just being a bit premature? It just might be.
While 2009 has been a year that the
motor finance industry might prefer to forget, the industry figures
we surveyed for this issue’s cover story (see pages 14-19) see
reasons for hope next year.
Not to say that the next year will
be easy, either for fleets or for point of sale finance providers.
On the contrary, several factors are lining up to ensure that the
industry does not have an easy ride of it in 2010, not least the
return of VAT at 17.5 percent; the arrival of the Consumer Credit
Directive; the worsening squeeze on public finances caused by the
UK government’s move to an austerity footing; the end of the
scrappage scheme; and subdued new car registrations. But there are
reasons for cheer at this festive time of year.
This time last year, MF’s cover
story asked whether the UK motor finance industry was suffering
from the effects of a “perfect storm”. It seems – to me, at least –
that the worst of the storm has now passed; those businesses which
have survived have emerged leaner and more efficient, having had to
trim expenses and innovate in order to stay in the marketplace.
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By GlobalDataThis is not to discount the distress
caused by layoffs in fleet and motor finance companies; MF wishes
all the best to those made redundant over the past year.
As the economy improves, and people
and businesses start to think about vehicle acquisition again, it
is our sincere hope that fleet and motor finance executives who
have found themselves out of a job through circumstances out of
their control find new niches in the industry, where their
experience and knowledge can be used to their best advantage.
On a lighter note, MF has – finally
– joined the ‘microblogging’ revolution started by the website
Twitter.com.
You can follow MF at
http://twitter.com/motorfinance – it is a nice, easy username to
remember.
An editor’s promise: There will
never be any updates about what everyone in the office had for
breakfast, or what we all think of the winner of X Factor, only of
news and views we think relevant to the industry.
For example, we recently “tweeted”
(ugh, hideous term) that Nigel Stead told us that Lex Autolease is
one-third of the way through its integration process (for the full
story, turn to page 10). And if any readers are on Twitter, do
please drop MF a line.
With very best wishes for the
Christmas and New Year holidays, to all our readers.
Jo Tacon
