OK, who mentioned the ‘R’ word? I mean, we all knew it was
coming as long ago as the summer of last year, then some bright
spark came up with “credit crunch” to describe the economic state
of the UK, which sounds like a Rich Tea, the best tea-dunking
biscuit on the planet.
As a result we all had a great 2007 and my January, along with
that of many other brokers, was brilliant, but disaster of all
disasters someone worked out that ‘credit crunch’ was nothing but
the ‘R’ word re-branded as something far more user-friendly.
When the press picked up on the expression, ‘credit crunch’,
consumers and small businesses had never heard of it, and the
credit crunch simply became a topic of conversation down the pub in
amongst the situation in Tibet and whether Hamilton will actually
win the world F1 championship this year, which he might just if he
can work out how to use the brakes when the car in front suddenly
slows down, especially when the person in front is the total
nutter, Alonso.
Anyway, it was probably the Sunday Times that did the quick
conversion from ‘credit crunch’ to ‘recession’ (damn, I didn’t want
to say that word), then all hell broke loose. Suddenly we heard
about nothing else in the press and on TV other than recession, cut
back, doom and gloom. In the meantime BT were getting calls from me
every hour asking them to check the line as I felt certain that the
calls for quotes wouldn’t just stop. I appeared also to have a
problem with my emails as they suddenly dried up too.
House prices have dropped by 2.5 per cent in one month, 100 per
cent mortgages have disappeared and the Bank of England has dropped
interest rates by a pathetic quarter per cent, as though that will
help businesses and consumers who are paying 20p per litre more for
fuel than they were six months ago.
Helping hand needed
What is the answer? I’ve considered flogging mobile phones out
of the back of the BMW and looked into the creation of a porno
website but gave up when the donkey refused to co-operate. Are we
doomed?
Maybe now is the time that funders should see the benefit of
brokers and give them some help to market their products, the sort
of thing they did 25 years ago. Help them to create databases and
get helpful information out to consumers and small businesses to
help to generate more interest in the products they want to sell,
like personal and business contract hire, while moving them away
from the increasingly dangerous HP.
And on the subject of giving help to brokers, it would be nice
if the funders could get back to providing the best rates on
contract hire. It’s not right that dealers are now able to offer
better rates than the specialist contact hire companies. Sort
yourselves out, boys – we don’t want dealers nicking our deals when
customers turn up for a test drive, do we?
Motor Finance Issue: 42 – April 08
by Graham Hill ,
Published for the web: April 24 08 9:41
Last Updated: April 24 08 9:53
