Alphera, the multi-make retail finance arm of BMW Group Financial Services, experienced its strongest months ever in January and February this year.

Spencer Halil, Alphera director, put the best growth in the company’s history since 2006 down to making changes to the business last year.

He said: "Obviously this is a very encouraging start to the year. It reflects the steps we took last year to put Alphera in a position where we can maintain our support for dealers at a time when other finance companies have scaled-back their activity or have withdrawn completely from the market.”

Halil said the uplift in Alphera’s business considerably exceeded the rate of growth in the new car market, which increased by 29% in January and 26% in February. The company expects the new business trend to continue in March.

“We are continuing to write new business and will be announcing further additions to our range of products and services in April and May,” he said. “This fits in with our strategy of growing Alphera sustainably through long term, mutually profitable partnerships based on the strength of our products and our appetite for high quality incremental business.”