AFC UK Autumn conference: resilience and renewal

Asset Finance Connect’s autumn conference – its 20^th edition and the biggest ever, with a record-breaking 725 registrations – added a fourth stream, receivables finance, to its core sessions on current auto, asset and equipment finance issues. Headline sponsored by Odessa, the event is now on track to become the largest asset finance gathering ever held in Europe.

Held the day before Rachel Reeves’ much-trailed second Budget, and with the outcome of the FCA’s plans for a motor finance consumer redress scheme still unknown, discussions took place against a backdrop of considerable economic and regulatory uncertainty.

Opening the conference AFC CEO Edward Peck noted “resilience is the order of the day, and defence is the strategy,” arguing that the industry was experiencing its own “Groundhog Day” waiting to hear from the Chancellor on possible tax policy changes relating to EVs, benefit-in-kind rules, fuel duty and, more positively, extending the full expensing regime to assets provided for leasing. 

On the subject of the current FCA consultation on what he labelled “the most ill-judged redress scheme ever”, Peck argued the industry had passed through the bereavement stages of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, “but has yet to reach acceptance: this is so fundamentally wrong lenders cannot come to terms with it.”

State of play

A key concern, particularly given the rash of policy announcements made and then withdrawn prior to the Budget, is providing the stability needed to give businesses and other stakeholders the confidence to invest, and consumers to spend.

“The lack of certainty and trust is delaying business decisions – we need stability for the long term,” pointed out panellist Lee Rhodes, commercial director, asset finance, Aldermore Bank.

Simon Goldie, the FLA’s director of business finance & advocacy, identified over-regulation as another brake on investment. “The commission disclosure issue has highlighted the complexity of the regulatory landscape.  The government needs to sort out the different regimes,” he said.

This point was developed in a later session looking at the auto finance redress scheme as the FCA’s extended deadline of 12 December approaches. Thomas Samuels, barrister with Henderson Chambers, described the FCA’s decision to go back as far as 2007 in considering cases which met lending guidance at the time as equivalent to “regulatory archaeology”.

“There are significant challenges in finding the data required, and for many lenders this amounts to a big distraction from normal business. Certainly, the industry wants to see finality, certainty and a way forward, but looking back 17 years is hard,” Shoosmiths partner Wayne Gibbard pointed out.

“And there is the question of proportionality. We could see consumers who had 0% finance deals with a captive where a commission was paid getting compensation. Surely that can’t be the right outcome from a redress scheme,” he added.

Speakers in this session also highlighted the possibility that an individual could receive multiple letters from different lenders if they had taken out several auto finance agreements over the period.  Each is likely to show redress calculations in a different format, and potentially may make different compensation offers, leading to confusion for consumers.

Technology update

Several sessions looked at how lenders and intermediaries are using technology to streamline processes and increase efficiencies. While traditionally the focus has been on back office functions, speakers from Lombard, Arkle Finance, Simply Asset Finance, Volvo FS, and Haydock Finance, dissected the opportunities to re-engineer origination pipelines.

“In retail there’s inevitably friction between multiple partners which we need to reduce at the same time as minimising the administrative burden, so decisions are made faster. Brokers want consistency of service, so one application of technology is around communication, that is telling them where they are in the process,” explained Dan Bailey, managing director Arkle Finance.

In a session moderated by Cat Powell, head of data & insight at Novuna Business Finance and sponsored by Odessa, panellists considered the implications of consumers themselves adopting more use of AI as a tool to search and compare quotes, and whether tech-savvy buyers would have higher expectations for service and bespoke terms.

“There’s always opaque information which lenders put out but which won’t appear in an AI-driven search. To ensure they are on customers’ radar, information needs to be machine readable and up to date,” Richard Huston, VAMOS managing director advised.

While AI looks set to encourage more “right first time” applications, Huston cautioned that grey deals and storybook lending would continue to require human intervention, suggesting that there remains uncertainty around how AI will best be deployed.

A panel considering how to make AI implementations work beyond the pilot stage advised success is down to users being clear on the objectives, rather than viewing the technology as a “silver bullet”, and working out in advance which business problem they want to solve.

The afternoon Dragons Den session saw three innovative proposals, from Krank, Generational and Gralio, using AI to tackle well-known headaches: diagnosing and monitoring the health of EV batteries; handling finance workflows; and completing asset inspection reports. The winner of the Fintech Innovator Award, sponsored by Lendscape, was Generational.

Looking to the future

The later afternoon conference slots focused on the future of the industry, with Shanika Amarasekara, the newly appointed FLA CEO, presenting the Leasing Foundation’s 30 under 30 awards, sponsored by Acquis.

Bringing in young talent has been a driver within the industry for a while, but as four speakers from the Leasing Foundation’s NextGeneration Network took to the soapbox to explain, the real challenge is to encourage recruits to stay and build a career longer term. Mentorship, providing a career roadmap and developing a community feel topped the call to action list.

The day ended with the customary fiercely contested industry debate. The topic under discussion was “This house believes the future of SME lending will be direct and not via intermediaries.”

Audience opinion was fairly evenly divided at the start, with just over half maintaining there will still be a role for brokers. That view shifted only a fraction, despite Christian Roelofs, CEO of Finativ, arguing forcibly for the “clarity, speed and certainty” of a wholly digital journey.  His view was robustly challenged by Alex Austin, managing director of Paddock Capital, who underlined the value of the “education, empathy, and engagement” arising from human interaction.

“A lot has been thrown at us this year, as the scope of the conference sessions shows, from economic and regulatory uncertainty to a wholly misconceived redress scheme and the challenge of AI.

“But as our younger speakers emphasised, it is by creating a community we can work together to share experiences, develop solutions, and build a long-term future.”

The surge in delegate numbers sees next year’s AFC summer conference on June 4^th move to a new venue, King’s Place.

You can view and download photos from the conference at: https://assetfinanceconnect.pixieset.com/financeconnectukautumn2025conference/