Graham Hill Car Finance Expert Explains HSBC Pulls Out Of Contract Hire

Wednesday, 17. March 2010

Yet another funder pulled out of the market last month. HSBC has been a bit of a mystery because whilst they appeared to have a fleet of 33,000 vehicles out on contract the contracts weren’t with them at all. The scheme known as undisclosed agency meant that whilst the documentation showed the name of HSBC the agreements were actually underwritten by Lex Autolease. This ‘outsourcing’ started in 2005 when Lex was part of the Halifax, so not really seen as a major conflict of interest, but since Lex is now part of Lloyds Banking Group and has merged with Autolease, HSBC have decided to pull out. If you are one of their customers you will not notice any change as the same people will be affectively looking after you. As a broker we were never allowed to use HSBC so it doesn’t make any difference to us. By Graham Hill