7:39 am, May 2, 2025
If you’re new to the motor trade, like I am, selling finance can feel like an elusive goal.
The rules and regulations surrounding the sale of financial services are vast and scary and with the recent commissions scandals, is it even worth considering?
At the Clever Car Collection, we’ve been doing just fine for the past year selling sub-£10,000 cars. Usually customers pay for them with savings or the odd bank loan, but occasionally we have lost a deal because we haven’t been able to offer finance.
There’s nothing more frustrating than working hard to get a lead on a car only to have to turn them down because you can’t offer them monthly payments.
Our tiny used car dealership in Gosport has been going for 18-months now and we’ve sold around 125 cars. We’ve grown from my home to a premises, from just me to two people, soon to be three, and we’ve become VAT registered along the way.
But, at the back of my mind there has always been a question of what it would be like if we could offer finance? Without trying it we would never know, so late last year I started to look into what was involved.
It soon became clear that while it was certainly possible, it wasn’t advisable to jump through the hoops to get accreditation alone, so I chatted to the team at Automotive Compliance.
Started by Paul Guy and Paul Speakman, the Gloucester-based firm helps car dealerships like mine get their FCA tickets.
They help car dealerships become ‘appointed representatives’ of their company, operating under their banner and rules, to comply with FCA regulations. They’ve now got hundreds of dealers on their books operating this way.
So what did we need to do to get there? Well, it all started with a very long form: FCA Form A. This is an opus of a document and thankfully there’s a lot of help from the admin team at Automotive Compliance.
They helped with every step of this laborious process which was a relief as when you’re running a dealership it’s very hard to find time to do admin.
Once that was in, it was a waiting game to get the relevant numbers from the FCA. Then the hard work started.
There’s a huge amount of e-learning to do to get your tickets. You need to be SAF Approved, which is an annual test taken online.
This status comes via the Finance & Leasing Association and any customer-facing staff member involved in the sale or provision of car finance needs it. The test is taken online and is tricky, but with some concentration we made it through.
Next up was a detailed online course with a number of modules to complete – covering everything from GDPR to bribes. The courses come with a detailed presentation which you work through first before tackling a multiple choice quizzes.
Automotive Compliance held our hands all the way through the process and with some concentration you can get it done in a few weeks. Yes, weeks.
With our testing complete and certificates received, we needed to find our finance provider. We opted to go with a broker – Octane Finance – who make the process pretty simple. We wanted to be as hands off as we could from the process and using a broker helps achieve this.
When we get a customer interested in finance we can send them an indicative quote and, if they like it, they can fill in their details and move the process along. Octane has a panel of more than 20 lenders and places the business with the best provider according to the customer’s circumstances.
I love the fact it’s quite hands off for us and it seems to work well. We’ve already done our first car sale on finance, which was a bit of a learning curve, but pretty smooth nonetheless.
What we weren’t expecting was the additional processes we would have to go through to stay compliant.
Now, before we even speak numbers with a customer, we have to sit them down to go through something known as ‘Stage 1’. This explains the fact that even though they might not want it, we can offer finance.
What I find most annoying is that we have to have these chats with every customer even when they’ve categorically told us they don’t want car finance. The argument is that they may one day come back to you and be annoyed that you didn’t offer them finance. What a world we live in, eh?
I find having these conversations with customers incredibly awkward, but I am slowly getting used to it. And having the ability to offer finance has certainly meant I’ve looked at some slightly more expensive cars to sell.
For some reason I had in my head that customers only buy cars ‘cash’ under £8,000 and would want finance after that – but then I ruined that by selling a car for £16,250 last week with the customer paying by direct bank transfer.
If you’re a new dealer, I can’t recommend the services of Automotive Compliance enough. Having someone to help hold your hand throughout the process of getting your FCA ticket makes a real difference. You just need to change your mindset a little to get used to a new way of doing things. I hope we can sell a few more cars as a result.
For more information visit Automotive Compliance and Octane Finance.
