Dealers using Bank of Scotland Dealer Finance (BoS) have been asked to switch to Lloyds-owned Black Horse Motor Finance following the closure of BoS’s motor finance operations.

Black Horse Motor Finance will now become the group’s sole brand for dealer finance. It is hoped this transfer will be complete by September.

Black Horse said a detailed review was carried out on BoS’s motor finance operations and it was decided the majority of them were “no longer financially viable or core to the business”.

The combined Black Horse business will be larger than either Black Horse or BoS Dealer Finance previously were. 

Black Horse was unable to provide a figure of what slice of the dealer finance market it would now have as a result of the consolidation, but said it positioned the company as the “clear market leader”.

This change will result in the loss of 910 full-time jobs which will affect 985 full and part time staff over a two-year period.
A spokesman for Black Horse said George Grant,
previously the boss of BoS Dealer Finance, had decided to leave the business to pursue “other opportunities”.

Other managerial staff from BoS Dealer Finance are currently going through a selection process which it is hoped will be completed in July.

Chris Sutton is now managing director of the new combined motor finance business at Black Horse.

A spokesman for Black Horse said: “Although there will be some changes to customers’ day-to-day dealings with us, in general it will be business as usual. 

“We will be working alongside our dealer customers to minimise the impact of these changes on their day-to-day business operations. 

“In the short term BoS will continue to accept and write new business. Black Horse will continue to offer credit at existing levels based on its usual commercial criteria.”