All articles by Jo Tacon
Jo Tacon
A year of new horizons
All owners of the Apple iPhone are keen to rave about its shiny, seductive qualities; you can download thousands of apps, which allow you to do anything from read the complete works of Shakespeare to track the number of calories you eat per day. And now it allows you to take out payday loans, too, thanks to an app from new lender Wonga.com By simply sliding bars on the screen, users can apply for loans of up to £1,000, repayable in anything from one to 31 days.
November motor finance boost
The Finance & Leasing Associations (FLA) figures for November 2009 show new car buyers took out £515 million of motor finance deals, up 79 percent by value of advances and 82 percent by number of cars compared with November 2008. For the first time since March 2009, consumers bought more used cars with dealer-arranged finance than in the same month the previous year, with used car finance figures showing a rise of 5 percent to £421 million by value, and 4 percent to 44,260 by volume.
Routes to (re)market
A new report looking at best practice in remarketing aims to open a debate on the most cost-efficient and practical ways to dispose of ex-fleet vehicles, says Jo Tacon An independent report into the remarketing arena, commissioned by grs, a remarketing company, has looked into this highly complex area in order to address several burning issues for fleets: namely, how could the vehicle disposal process be made more efficient, and more cost-effective The reports focus is on how to improve processes, taking into account whole-life costs and hidden costs such as vehicle funding, refurbishment and depreciation, says Kerry Finnon, managing director of grs
Editor’s Letter: Out with the old
Time flies whether you are having fun or not. It seems like hardly any time at all has passed since I wrote, in the Editors 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.
Black Horse Motor Finance to cease funding broker business
Black Horse Motor Finance is to stop funding business introduced by brokers at the end of January, the Lloyds Banking Group-owned finance house has announced.
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Boards modify approach to accounting options
The IASB and FASBs November meeting produced a clarification of the boards approach to accounting for options, as the lease accounting project begins to pick up speed.
FLA stats show year-on-year rise in PoS finance
The latest figures from the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that, in October, there was strong demand from consumers for new car finance.
Integration, integration, integration
Nigel Stead of Lex Autolease talks to Jo Tacon about bringing together two businesses to create the largest fleet operator in the UK
More changes on the horizon?
Jo Tacon reports on the latest developments in the IASB and FASBs lease accounting project The IASB and FASBs lease accounting project is gathering pace, with an exposure draft due in the second quarter of next year, and the final standard itself in the second quarter of 2011
Renegotiating partnerships
The General Motors soap opera rolls on, with new developments surprising even seasoned car industry watchers The latest twist the news that the American parent is not to dispose of its European division, Opel, which includes the UK brand Vauxhall, after all has provoked anger from the German government. Angela Merkels administration had invested heavily, both financially and politically, in the proposed deal with Magna and Bank of Russia-owned Sberbank, in the hope that by doing so it could avoid job cuts for German workers.