Santander’s Gonzalo Castro Colino to join AFC European Leaders’ Summit

John Rees, head of equipment finance at AFC, will lead a panel of lenders—including Carmen Ene, CEO at BNP Paribas 3StepIT; Michiel van Ramesdonk, head of international sales, PEAC Solutions; and Ian Robertson, executive director at Invigors—joined by Colino in a debate focused on the commercial opportunities for lending to SMEs that are going to deliver acceptable returns for banks and stimulate much needed growth in the economy.

Colino recently contacted AFC to discuss Santander’s focus on using an SME’s existing assets to provide much needed liquidity. This was described by AFC equipment finance leader John Rees as a fine example of real asset finance lending using and accepting, in the underwriting process, the real asset value both in terms of its fundamental business use and its secondary market value BUT also pricing an increased risk that comes with a sale-and-leaseback transaction into the pricing model (higher margin).

Topics to be considered in this session include:

• Is green finance still an opportunity? Can it really be used to drive growth or is it only a finance opportunity for a sunnier, state-subsidised world?
• Are holistic solutions being blocked by product silos? What are the specialist funding sources which together could unlock lending for SMEs? How do we make reward align with SME risk?
• Can private equity lenders really play in areas where the banks can’t? Where are the private equity lead higher margin products and services?
• How are bank owned equipment finance subsidiaries planning to compete for their share of their parent’s capital?

Asset Finance Connect’s European Leaders’ Summit takes place on 15^th May in Amsterdam. The event is by invitation only and free-to-attend. Lending executives who would like to attend and participate in the Summit should contact lousieclavey@assetfinanceconnect.com.

More details of the Summit agenda can be found here.