S&U, parent company of car finance lender
Advantage Finance, issued a trading statement this week with an
upbeat assessment of its subsidiary.

The sub-prime lender wrote almost 2,500
contracts in the first half of the year, up from 2,300 in H1 2010.
In addition, the average value of its net car advances has risen
from £4,500 last year to £5,000. Going by these figures, Advantage
should be on track to write £25 million in HP contracts by the end
of the year.

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Advantage’s deputy managing director Keith
Charlton says the firm is writing better quality business than in
past, largely due to the continuing effect of the widescale exit of
other market players in the past four or five years.

“We’re in a position whereby we are writing
good quality business from all sorts of different introducers,”
said Charlton. “We are a broker-led business and I feel that our
broker-introducers are proving to be a good solution for
dealers.”

Charlton maintains that the business’s
collection quality “remains excellent”, adding: “We always were
quite a choosy lender, prudent in our underwriting, and we never
really experienced the collection problems that some who’ve left
the market were having.

“Also we have systems that we designed
ourselves to fit our business model, meaning we’re always on the
ball with overdue customers.”

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Charlton concluded: “Athough we’re robust with
our collections, we’re also flexible, and not looking to enforce at
the first default. Rather we work with our customers who are
suffering difficulties and I think that they appreciate us for
that.”