Alphera Financial Services has recorded its best-ever annual performance in 2020, despite the unprecedented and challenging circumstances.

The BMW Group business surpassed 100,000 motor finance agreements during a 12-month period for the first time ever, with its 104,504 new customer contracts representing a 20.6% improvement over 2019.

This amounted to £1.8 billion in lending during 2020, a record figure for Alphera and a 24% improvement over the previous year (£1.45 billion).

In the last five years, Alphera has nearly tripled its total lending and number of annual cases.

Spencer Halil, director at Alphera, said: “2020 was a challenging year for a lot of reasons but the Alphera team and our Partners really pulled together to turn things around and deliver a record-breaking performance.

“We worked closely with our Partners and customers to make sure that support was there when needed, such as with the transition to ‘contactless sales’ processes or during times of financial difficulty for individual customers. The strength of our partnerships was demonstrated in the ways we were able to be agile in responding to a rapidly-changing environment, while maximising the opportunities when the market and consumer demand picked up at pace. “We’ve all had a challenging start to 2021, but as Alphera celebrates 15 years in the UK we’re optimistic about the future and the prospects for another positive year.”

During 2020, the company launched its first ever finance product to encourage the transition to more sustainable forms of mobility. Alphera Zero allows consumers to purchase a used hybrid or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and help offset its remaining carbon emissions from driving throughout their term of ownership – at no cost to them.