All articles by Fred Crawley
Fred Crawley
Lenders poised for further growth
Car dealerships across the board are seeing a rise in finance penetration rates, Motor Finance learned last month.
Software providers might be regulated by CCA
Frontline Solutions to be regulated under categories C and H of Consumer Credit Act. Software providers for the motor finance sector might be regulated by the Consumer Credit Act (CCA), Motor Finance has learned. Evidence of this emerged last month when it was reported the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) had recently issued software company Frontline Solutions UK with a consumer credit licence (CCL).
Reaching for top spot
As a March sales total of £273 million smashes pre-recession sales records at Volkswagen Financial Services, only a serious dip in consumer confidence seems capable of stopping its ascendancy to the top of the UK point-of-sale market The last time Leasing Life spoke to Graham Wheeler, managing director of Volkswagen Financial Services (VWFS), it was on a warm September day just a week after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Can contact books be bought?
A large part of the value of this business, says Richard Hall, of asset and motor finance broker Herts Business Solutions (HBS) is in my mobile phone, or in there, indicating the rack of filing cabinets that line the back of his office.
Rush for the regions
Scotland and Northern Ireland look set to provide important business opportunities for motor finance companies in the next year and beyond. Close Motor Finance, whose main base is in Doncaster, is about to set up shop in Northern Ireland, while motor finance broker DSG Financial Services is looking to conquer the Scottish market
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Toyota recall ‘will damage RVs’
The recall of more than 8 million Toyota vehicles, including nearly 200,000 in the UK, bodes particularly badly in terms of fleet uptake for a brand intended to stand for quality, safety and reliability. Toyota, the worlds largest carmaker since overtaking General Motors in 2008, invited further criticism including comments from transport secretary Lord Adonis by taking more than 12 months to respond to widespread reports of acceleration and braking problems in its vehicles. Recalling that RVs on Ford Explorers dived quite significantly for the best part of three years after Fords high-profile recall operation ten years ago, Peter de Rousset-Hall, chairman of Woburn Consulting, noted that logical or not, this will have a noticeable effect on the market for Toyota cars.
GE fleet survey: UK economy set for upturn
According to a recent survey conducted by GE Capital, 57 percent of UK vehicle fleet managers believe that the UK economy will improve slightly by the start of 2011. Some 45 percent of car fleet managers expected to maintain the size of their fleets over the next year, with this figure rising to 71 percent among LCV fleet managers.
Longer lifecycles help cushion financial blow
Recent plans to integrate electric vehicles (EVs) into the worlds largest car rental fleets have again highlighted asset longevity as a major factor in the design of lease and rental service offerings for the zero-emissions world. Hertz, the worlds biggest vehicle rental company, announced in February that it had made a deal with Nissan to start offering its mass market electric car, the lithium-ion battery powered LEAF model, at rental sites across the USA and Europe by early 2011. Soon after, European rental group Avis announced its own partnership with the Renault side of the Renault-Nissan alliance, promising the provision of four Renault EV models at its rental sites from 2011 onwards.
Lex Autolease signs 1500-vehicle, £35 million deal
Lex Autolease, the UKs largest fleet provider, is to supply chilled foods giant Dairy Crest with 1,000 commercial vehicles and 500 cars, in a deal worth £35 million The three year sole supply arrangement will see Dairy Crests milk delivery fleet augmented with a mixture of Ford and Mercedes CVs, on maintenance-inclusive contract hire agreements
New Plimsoll report looks at strength of leasing industry
According to the report, The UK Leasing Services Industry, some 192 out of 444 companies surveyed 43 percent have seen a fall in their overall financial strength (see The bigger they are…, opposite page) in their last reporting period.