{"id":6499,"date":"2014-07-31T15:23:57","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T15:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=6499"},"modified":"2014-07-31T15:23:57","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T15:23:57","slug":"new-van-financing-difficulties-boost-case-for-business-van-hire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/6499","title":{"rendered":"New van financing difficulties boost case for business van hire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mercedes-BenzAccording to research carried out by Mercedes-Benz Vans, 58% of small businesses (SMEs) loan applications are rejected by high street banks.<\/p>\n

The Bank of England has said that lending to small and medium sized businesses under the government\u2019s Funding for Lending scheme has fallen in 2014, with net lending decreasing by \u00a32.7bn in the first quarter, and specific SME lending falling by \u00a3723m.<\/p>\n

This is a sharp contrast to before the financial crisis — in 2007, records show that 90% of business loan applications were approved.<\/p>\n

While it’s probably fair to say\u00a0that too many loans were being approved in 2007, it’s probably equally fair to say that today — with the economy recovering and unemployment falling — banks could do more to support\u00a0small businesses than they are doing.<\/p>\n

When it comes to buying new vans, the fall in high street lending hasn’t prevented a big surge in new van registrations, which look set to hit pre-recession\u00a0levels in 2014<\/a>. One reason for this is that alternative methods of funding new vans are\u00a0becoming increasingly popular.<\/p>\n

One example is vendor financing — Mercedes-Benz Financial Services says that it approves 85% of\u00a0finance request for new vans, and has recently created a new SME-focused National Business Development team.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, contract hire, leasing and even peer-to-peer lending are also all becoming more popular, as is\u00a0long-term and daily van rental.<\/p>\n

Indeed,\u00a0van hire is one area that did not suffer overly during the recession. Although some over-leveraged\u00a0firms went bust, having expanded too rapidly during the boom years, many\u00a0established rental firms have delivered solid growth over the last five years, as customers have chosen to hire, rather than own, their vans.<\/p>\n

There are a number of advantages to this: operationally, it means that the operator does not have\u00a0to pay for vans when they don’t need them, but can rapidly scale up their fleet to meet short-term demand — a new contract, for example.<\/p>\n

Financially, it means that small businesses don’t have to take new debt onto their books, or enter into costly long-term leasing agreements.<\/p>\n

Furthermore,\u00a0by using hire vans, running costs\u00a0are predictable and minimal, with the\u00a0rental firm covering most costs and ensuring that vans are\u00a0maintained\u00a0as required.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, owning vans\u00a0yourself has few advantages, unless they need to be customised. Even liveried vans are an option in a long-term rental agreement — the quality and affordability of modern vinyl wraps means that\u00a0custom paint jobs are unnecessary, and a wrapped van can be restored to pristine white\u00a0in a few hours, once its comes off hire.<\/p>\n

It all adds up to a new way of looking at\u00a0business\u00a0van ownership.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Does your business still finance and own its vans conventionally, or have you been forced to find alternative ways to facilitate\u00a0van renewal and fleet expansion?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UK high street banks remain reluctant to lend to SMEs, according to a new study by Mercedes-Benz Vans, which finds that van operators are finding other ways to finance their new vans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6501,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6499\/revisions\/6501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}