The company’s principal, Mr. Peter Birks, spent many productive years in the auto retail business and knew that asset leasing can be a very attractive, lucrative and sustainable marketplace. He recently developed a powerful and profitable lease profit centre for a large British Columbia credit union. This cooperative effort demonstrated that a credit union lease program can work well in Canada.
“The leasing business has provided strong profitability, exceptional member growth and revenue diversification while achieving low credit losses. Leasing is a line of business that all credit unions should take a serious look at.” (Gord Huston, formerly CEO of Envision/First West).
It became clear to Mr. Birks and his industry colleagues that there was a significant opportunity for other credit unions in Canada to provide lease financing to their members. However, none did. The reason was that credit unions faced some significant barriers to entry. These included: unfamiliarity with the auto industry, significant upfront product development costs, uncertainty of staff requirements, asset residual risks and lack of systems to dispose of lease-end assets etc.