Asset Finance
Welcome to the asset finance pages.
The FLA is the leading trade association for the asset finance sector in the UK.
In 2008, FLA members contributed funding worth £28.8 billion to help UK businesses and public sector organisations grow and improve their services. Asset finance provided 750,000 SMEs with £15 billion of essential business equipment.
What is Asset Finance?
Whenever organisations invest in tangible assets – anything from office equipment to manufacturing plant, from cars to a fleet of aircraft – they usually need an affordable, secure means of finance.
That’s exactly what the Asset Finance sector is all about. In fact, Asset Finance is the third most common source of finance for businesses, after bank overdrafts and loans. It is also of growing importance in the public sector. Asset Finance:
- Funds almost 28% of all fixed capital investment, other than property and own-account software in the UK.
- Provides finance to around 20% of all SMEs, and to around 33% of SMEs that seek external funding
- Is particularly important in the manufacturing, agriculture and transport sectors, and in the North East, North West and South West.
- The two main forms of Asset Finance are Leasing and Hire Purchase
Under a leasing agreement, the leasing company or lessors buys and owns the asset. The customer, or lessee, then hires the asset, paying rental over a fixed period. At the end of the contract, the customer usually has a choice of extending the lease, buying the asset or simply returning it.
Hire Purchase is a financing solution for companies wishing to purchase business assets. The customer pays an initial deposit, with the remainder of the balance and interest paid over a period of time. On completion, ownership of the asset transfers to the customer.
Sources of Asset Finance
Asset finance can be obtained direct from specialist providers, or indirectly through equipment suppliers or finance brokers.
Most companies providing direct Asset Finance in the UK are members of the FLA. Choosing an FLA member for Asset Finance is your reassurance that funding will be provided under the stringent business standards set out in the FLA's Business Code of Conduct.
Recent news
Finance House Base Rate (FHBR) is 1.0% for March 2010-
26 Feb 2010
The FHBR will be 1.0% for March 2010, which represents no change compared with February 2010. 
Tax support needed to achieve carbon reduction, says FLA-
9 Dec 2009
Commenting on the Pre-Budget Report, FLA Director General, Stephen Sklaroff, said: 
Pre-Budget Report must include support for small business investment, says FLA-
2 Dec 2009
Asset finance providers report that businesses, especially hundreds of thousands of small businesses, are still delaying investment in essential business equipment. The FLA has called for next week?s Pre-Budget Report to include tax incentives to help businesses to invest in leasing new equipment.
