According to the latest global asset and auto finance survey published twice yearly by White Clarke Group, so far in 2016 the auto and asset finance industry has coped well with uncertainty. While forecasts have been trimmed during the year, they have not been cut so savagely as to threaten the sector’s recovery, but continued uncertainty seems likely to have an increasingly damaging effect on the outlook for the industry.

At present, the election of Donald Trump in the US; the UK’s decision to go for Brexit; continued concerns about the state of the economy in the EU and the upsurge during the year in terrorist attacks have created further uncertainty, which will continue to lower growth in the overall economy at least into quarter one of 2017, and this will be reflected in growth rates in the global asset and auto finance industry.

These are the findings of the latest global asset and auto finance survey published twice yearly by White Clarke Group which is available to download by clicking here.

The report shows that finance companies are responding to changing customer attitudes towards usage rather than ownership with new offerings, such as mobility options in the auto finance sector. The industry is well placed to capitalize on these trends providing it invests in the technology and new skills required to thrive in a new digitally dominated world.

Many lenders in the asset finance industry have successfully made the transition to a “new normal”, where economic shocks and political uncertainty have become part of business life. Lessors have responded by keeping a firm control on costs, streamlining and upgrading operations and pushing forward with innovations. They have done much to get their own house in order, and rising volumes of new business in many key markets has shown that the new approach seems to be working.

Strong growth has been recorded in parts of Eastern Europe, where a new consumer class is starting to lease vehicles and new business ventures are looking for long-term funding. Despite setbacks in countries such as Brazil, the South American leasing market recorded a 17% growth in 2015. But as 2016 draws to a close, the issue now is how to ensure that external pressures, including tight new regulations and changes to accounting rules, do not undermine that progress.