The issues facing the motor retail finance sector as a result of huge developments in technology and social change were at the forefront of this year’s Linedata Exchange Conference in London.

John Lindsay, management consultant at JLSR, said that the industry had been ‘sleep walking’ and lacked the innovation needed to meet the changes in technology.

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"The sharing economy, generation Y, innovations in the technology sector and environmental pressures present enormous challenges to the automotive retail and asset finance sectors and worryingly the sector is showing a lack of creativity and innovation to meet these changes. The industry seems to be sleep walking towards this sea change and business’s need to think about how they are going to factor these challenges into their long term strategic thinking," said Lindsay.

"The traditional automotive dealer model will need to adapt to survive these challenges, especially in terms of new car sales, given the moves by car manufactures to revisit their long term retail plans. The effect on motor retail financing could be seismic," he added.

Karl Werner, head of sales and marketing at Moto Novo Finance, acknowledged that the motor finance industry had been slow to adapt but believed the sector was keen to embrace technology in the future.

"The motor finance industry has never had it so good and maybe as a result has been slow to adapt its business model to reflect changes in society and innovations in technology.

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"But there are now promising signs that we have turned the corner with new technology now available to allow customers a self-service operation 24/7.

"We need to remember that customer experience is always paramount and that we need to remain profitable in the short and medium term."