of UK supermarket Tesco have been offered personal car leasing
through a tie-up between the supermarket and fleet management and
leasing company Lombard Vehicle
Management.
The scheme, accessed through a
password-protected website, is separate from Tesco’s company car
scheme for staff, said Tesco spokesman Matthew Dransfield. While
Tesco employs over 250,000 people in the UK, making it the
country’s largest private employer, the number of those eligible
for the private leasing scheme was not disclosed.
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Benefits for staff choosing to take up the offer include 1,000
Tesco Clubcard loyalty points for every year a car is leased, a
carbon offset option for cars with sub-120g/km CO2 emissions, and
“special deals” on leases.
“It’s a great deal,” Dransfield said. “Maintenance can be
included [in the terms of the lease contract], but as an opt in, to
make sure we give people choice,” he added.
A spokeswoman for Lombard Vehicle Management’s parent
company, Royal Bank
of Scotland (RBS),
said: “Lombard Vehicle Management is running a pilot car leasing
scheme for Tesco employees currently named Tesco Cars. This is
purely for Tesco staff and forms part of their employee benefits
package. The success of the pilot will be monitored before any
formal decision is made to formulate the programme.
RBS has recently agreed to sell back to Tesco the half-stake it
owns in the retailer’s Tesco Personal
Finance venture for
a reported £950m. Once this has taken place, Tesco plans to ramp up
its presence in consumer financial services (see below), and even
has plans to launch itself as a retail bank – it will in the future
consider providing basic current accounts to customers.
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By GlobalDataThe spokeswoman added: “Tesco Personal Finance was a joint
financial services venture between Tesco and RBS. It is completely
separate to the Tesco Cars programme and the announcement of Tesco
reaching an agreement to buy from RBS its 50 per cent shareholding
in Tesco Personal Finance Group Limited has no implications for the
pilot scheme.”
High street retailers eye motor insurance
market
Tesco and department store group John Lewis have both announced
plans to grow their presence in the car insurance market.
John Lewis has launched online motor insurance through its
Greenbee arm, with policies underwritten by Fortis.
Tesco, meanwhile, will promote own-brand loans and insurance
more heavily in-store.
It has also recently launched warranties for owners of used cars
under 10 years old with fewer than 100,000 miles on the clock.
The retailers’ moves may cause more headaches for motor dealers
who rely on selling warranties and other finance and insurance
products as supplementary income streams, especially as car sales
volumes fall.
Motor Finance Issue: 45 – July 08
Published for the web: August 8 08 17:6
