F&I Management & Training

The country’s third largest vehicle lease company, Lombard Vehicle Management (LVM), has stopped using brokers to introduce new business.

It has also ceased accepting new business within its Jamjars Cars business, choosing to step away from consumers to focus on businesses.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which owns LVM as well as Lombard Business Finance, said the decision to stop using brokers across both operations could result in up to 85 job losses.

The decision means Lombard will now have to develop direct relationships with all its fleet customers and source new business itself.

To help, it will develop closer ties with RBS and its corporate customers – RBS is the country’s largest lender to small and medium businesses - so that it can “get to know more about their underlying business” and develop the right funding method for their vehicles, explained an RBS spokesman.

“As a result of this change we will be working even closer with our colleagues in the bank’s business, commercial and corporate channels to support their customers’ asset finance requirements.”

It also means the bank has more control over the credit business it writes.

“This change to our operating structure will also help us credit manage our book more effectively by dealing directly with the customer from the outset.”

RBS would not reveal the scale of its broker fleet business, although it said there would be an “initial impact” from its decision on LVM’s business.

However, it stressed that the decision was about a change in the way it gets new business rather than an attempt to pull away from the fleet market.

“Lombard remains the UK’s largest asset finance provider and this is about a change in our distribution model for these business units as opposed to any scaling back of provision of finance to the market,” said the spokesman.

“Lombard Vehicle Management will now deal directly with customers on their asset finance requirements.”

DATED: 09.09.09

FEED: AM