All articles by Verdict Staff
Verdict Staff
Fleet deals: Zenith
R Twining and Company, a producer of tea and hot drinks including Ovaltine, has outsourced the management of its 120 vehicle UK fleet to Zenith Provecta.
BMW FS holding up parent, Q1 results reveal
BMW today linked its return to health to excellent operating profits at its leasing division, as well as soaring demand for luxury vehicles in China. The German car manufacturer said that Q1 earnings at BMW Financial Services, which reported profits before interest and tax of 213 million – against 70 million in Q1 2009 as one of the main factors behind its swing back into profit.
Across the pond
Tough financial times boosts communication, Toyota FS struggling, internet enquiries falling Rough financial times are inspiring lenders nationwide to rev up their communication frequency with collection agency-partners
Tony Worthy: Motor month
In March, 397,383 new cars were registered, a 26.6% rise on a difficult March 2009
Graham Hill: The Arranger
They were not major problems. Typical ones would be if a salesman had an extended lunch and turned up late for an appointment, or an engineer got delayed at the bookies.
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News in brief
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is to increase the consultation period for its review of the payment protection insurance (PPI) market by a further six weeks.All interested parties will have until 22 April to send further comments to the FSA about its proposed remedies to the way sales of PPI are regulated.The move comes in response to feedback to a previous FSA consultation paper on proposals for regulating PPI sales, which attracted a “very critical” response from the industry, although the responses from consumer groups were “very supportive”, the FSA said.Financial research company Defaqto warned that compensation for consumer PPI complaints could cost the industry up to £3 billion.Motor dealers which sold PPI alongside car finance agreements could find themselves on the hook for a share of this figure especially dealers which sold single-premium policies, which were particularly criticised by the FSA.Defaqto insight analyst Ben Heffer said: “Single-premium policies are the class of business which attracted most complaints
Software and systems update
IT company White Clarke Group (WCG) has launched the latest version of its lease software solution CALMS for the asset finance, motor finance and fleet sectors.
On the move
BMW Financial Services UK has appointed a new interim chief executive, Christian Kalinke The former head of the BMW captives UK operations, Keith Dye, is returning to his native South Africa, after four-and-a-half years at the helm.Kalinke will take up the post on March 1, and will oversee BMW Financial Services UK until a permanent replacement for Dye is recruited
Andy Tong: At the sharp end
I was asked to write a column based on different customer segments and how to sell to them, which took me right back to the Motor Finance Europe Conference held in London last March.