Asset finance facing emerging economic and compliance challenges

bassett stephen2 — Stephen BassettAFC head of UK asset finance community

The pace of change in the asset finance sector is accelerating with economic challenges, new regulation, evolving technology, and players constantly changing in the market. Everyone in the asset finance sector needs to be ready to reorganise and adjust to a rapidly changing world.

A host of asset finance leaders came together at the Asset Finance Connect (AFC) Autumn 2023 Conference to explore the emerging economic and compliance challenges facing the evolving industry as we entered 2024.

The industry panellists discussed the findings of the AFC asset finance confidence survey H2 2023, covering an array of topics including lenders’ appetite to lend; SMEs’ appetite to borrow; growth of new business volumes; operating, compliance and technology costs; and compliance and credit risk.

The accompanying summary and analysis of the interview can be found here.

The key issues discussed in the panel session focused on:

Challenging economic environment impacting the asset finance sector including lenders’ appetite to lend, SMEs borrowing demand, and rising operating costs.
Impact of increasing compliance costs on the industry, including the withdrawal from the industry of funders doing regulated business, and the effect of Basel III reforms.
Need for digital solutions to increase efficiency between brokers and funders, while addressing industry challenges.

Following on from the conference discussion, we asked AFC’s head of UK asset finance, Stephen Bassett, who moderated the session, to provide an analysis which can be found at https://www.assetfinanceconnect.com/webcast/asset-finance-facing-emerging-economic-and-compliance-challenges/