​Advertisement feature from Black Horse

Creating opportunity in today’s market is the key to sustainable success. Whether it’s responding to the digital needs of your customers or creating standout experiences at your showroom, opportunity can take many forms. 

Using regulation change to drive success

The past few years have seen significant change in finance regulation, but at Black Horse we see that as a great opportunity for dealers to increase sales while still meeting the needs of their customers.

The new regulations mean consumers get greater clarity when discussing finance agreements with their dealer, giving you a way to enhance trust and loyalty, while increasing customer advocacy.

​Our support in action

We recently worked with ITN to produce a film showing how regulatory change can be successfully implemented, view how the featured dealer increased their finance agreements by 33%.

The film shows how dealers can respond to regulatory change and use resources, such as our user-friendly software support, to explain finance products clearly and transparently to customers.

Working together

As a dealer, working together with your finance provider is crucial to effectively navigate the changing regulatory environment. We’ve invested, and will continue to invest, in our employees and technology to help dealers incorporate change within their systems and processes.

Highlighting that ambition were 23 of our employees who graduated in the new Certificate for Automotive Finance Specialists – a qualification covering the key concepts, products and regulatory framework in which dealers operate. 

They made up over 70% of this first class, and more of our employees are lined up to take the qualification. That’s because we see having skilled, expert and knowledgeable staff on hand to discuss financial regulation with you as key to supporting your success.   

​Advertising support

As part of our commitment to support dealers through regulatory change, we used our expertise to produce a Dealer Advertising Guidelines document.

From working closely with dealers such as you, we understood there was confusion about how financial promotions should be advertised. Our guide provides clear instructions about how to promote finance and examples of the wording you should be using on your promotional material.

Maintaining compliance

In the future, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is likely to be more rigorous in enforcing its rules and guidance with dealers who do not comply with their responsibilities. This could see a rise in the number of dealers being prosecuted or losing their licence to sell finance.

All our processes comply or go beyond the FCA’s requirements, and that includes more robust questions included in our affordability and sustainability checks. These check whether your customers can sustainably repay their finance agreement throughout its lifetime – protecting them from serious debt problems, while protecting you from FCA prosecution for non-compliance.  

The importance of regulation 

We know that point of sale finance provides a great way to increase sales, and we’re determined to ensure we can support dealers in all areas of regulation compliance – helping you make the most of these opportunities.

That’s why we’ll continue to invest in our dealer support to ensure you have compliant systems and processes to help you win and retain even more customers.

For more information visit www.blackhorse.co.uk/dealerportal