VB Leasing: Conditions for taking out funding are now much tougher

Leasing companies have tightened lending terms in order to attract only financially sound clients, given that there has been a wave of repossessions from bad payers. VB Leasing, one of the top ten companies on this market, which is controlled by Austria's Volksbank, raised the down payment on new financing by 5% on average, though for some of the clients, the rise was 10-15%, and is analysing the situation of companies applying for financing in much greater detail. We are looking at the company's contracts to see if their business in the next 1-3 years will allow them to pay their instalments," Demmer told ZF in an interview. The Austrians took these steps in the context where this year there has been an unprecedented rise in goods repossessions on the entire leasing market from clients that can no longer pay their instalments. VB Leasing took back 1,170 goods from clients from the beginning of the year until the end of September, 1,050 of which are cars, while the rest is accounted for by equipment. Repossessed cars make up 4% of the company's overall car portfolio. In the past, when the leasing market was rising by 40-60% a year, VB Leasing would only repossess 40-50 cars a year. "We are working with a company that handles repossessions, but this is the last step. We grant grace periods of three months on average to some of our clients. Whilst in the past we had one employee that used to handle repossessions, now we have five people doing this," explains the general manager of VB Leasing.