NEWS

MAZDA has sealed a deal with Equity direct enabling dealers to offer car insurance on new and used motors. The 3 year deal gives a boost to both dealers and customers, says Mazda UK sales director Mark Cameron. ‘Equity demonstrates the online expertise and high levels of customer service we look for when selecting a [...]

CAR dealer finance was up 15 percent in May 2010 as more than half of car buyers took it up. This has allayed fears from the FLA that the end of scrappage would lead to a drop-off in new car buyers. Indeed, a tentative economic improvement has also seen the number of businesses using dealer [...]

CAR dealers are being called upon by the Government to help review consumer credit and insolvency arrangements. Consumer Affairs Minister Edward Davey has revealed the Government will begin the review after Parliament’s summer recess – and wants to start generating feedback right now! He wants advice from all stakeholders, including car dealers, on a range [...]

CITROEN UK has replaced departing-for-Mercedes MD Gary Savage with in-house finance whiz Linda Jackson. Jackson joins from Citroen France, where she was finance director – a role she was promoted to after being finance controller for Citroen UK. She’s also been managing director of MG Rover Group in France, as well as European sales financial [...]

NEW car finance grew for the 8th month running in April – the first month figures were not boosted by scrappage. The FLA says finance for new cars was up 20 percent, giving a clear picture of demand from new car buyers. It’s still down on pre-recession levels, but should be considered positive by dealers. [...]

BRIDFORD Financial Services has just opened two new offices in the South West and the Midlands. They join Bridford’s existing offices in the North East, North West, South East and Scotland. Jonathon Oliver and Des Branson have been appointed to manage the sites in the South West and Midlands respectively. Bridford owner Tim Marlow, said: [...]

HPI Finance Gateway says a doubling of its sales team means every dealer now has a dedicated account manager. Overseeing the fast-growing team is Michelle Morgan who is the team’s support manager. ‘The HPI Finance Gateway team is at the heart of the success of this product and we continue to invest in the expertise [...]

FINANCE standards have received a boost after two big dealer groups achieved FLA SAF competency. Motorpoint and The Co-Operative Motor Group are the latest dealer groups to reach the high levels demanded by the competency assessment. Indeed, Motorpoint is actually the first UK car supermarket to be approved by the FLA test. More than 100 [...]

FRAUDSTERS are being challenged by a booming partnership between the FLA and big Police body ACPO. The FLA has been working closely with ACPO since September 2007 to clamp down on finance fraud, via the Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (AVCIS). In that time, there have been 236 arrests and more than 1700 cars (worth over [...]

CAR dealer finance enabled more than 95,000 10-registration cars to hit UK roads in March reports the FLA. That’s a huge rise of 46 percent compared with the preceding month. To put it into context, the total figure advanced out to customers to buy their new cars in March was £1.15 billion. This is further [...]

BLACK Horse MD Chris Sutton has been revealed as the new chairman of the Finance and Leasing Association. The top man at an industry point-of-sale leader takes over from David Betteley, JLR’s director of financial services. ‘I am very grateful to David Betteley for his strong leadership of the FLA over recent years,’ said Sutton [...]

SOUTHERN Finance has been acquired by private bank R. Raphael & Sons in a deal announced today. The independent finance firm has been part of privately owned Lenlyn Group since 2005. Raphaels Bank is also a member of the Group and its full acquisition of Southern Finance is said to ‘give the motor finance specialist [...]

WHICH? Car says car dealers are taking customers for a ride over interest on finance scheme deals. The consumer body carried out an undercover investigation and says that not a single salesperson revealed the total cost of interest on car finance. As a result, it has reported its findings to the OFT. Without full interest [...]

VOLKSWAGEN Financial Services is now using 1Link Disposal Network’s ecommerce solution for end-of-contract repatriation. VW Group lease vehicles are now fed back into the Volkswagen car dealer franchise network using the innovative solution developed by epyx. Ken Trinder, head of business development at epyx, said it’s part of a trend among manufacturers to ensure that [...]

CAR dealers are missing out on a large chunk of additional revenue from buyers not using in house financial services. What’s more, adds the FLA, demand for car dealer finance is actually slipping: 19 percent fewer cars were sold on dealer finance than January 2009. No surprise, says HPI: a survey revealed that 56 percent [...]

BRIDFORD motor finance has announced its best-ever first quarter after securing £7.2m of funds. This comes on the back of a record month in March, where £3.5m of funds were secured! It means the company is well on track to beat last year’s £25m record – which, you guessed it, was a record-breaking year. Growth [...]

MOTORPOINT is the first big UK car supermarket to earn SAF Approved accreditation from the FLA. The finance sales seal of approval flag has been earned by Motorpoint’s 100-strong sales team. For the past month, they have been completing the online tests required to become SAF Approved. Only once staff have passed the tests does [...]

VAUXHALL is aiming to open retail car buyers’ eyes to the benefits of contract hire with a new offer. The firms’ new ‘Personal Contract Hire’ plan – PCH – is being promoted on the premise of meagre initial outlay and low monthly payments. It is launching on the Corsa SXi, which is available for £189 [...]

SMALL businesses are to benefit from a new credit adjudicator task force to ensure fairness in finance. It will be headed by The Apprentice leader Lord Sugar, who is the government’s enterprise chairman. Lord Mandelson has teamed him up with FSA chairman John Wright and former Lloyds TSB deputy chief exec Mike Fairey. What’s this [...]

GILDER Group Volkswagen has moved its day-to-day banking operations to Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets. The move comes with an agreement from Lloyds TSB to provide £4m working capital finance for Gilder. Garry Scotting, CEO of Gilder Group, said ‘the business has seen exceptional growth over the years, and is continuing to grow strongly despite these [...]