Provision of software for stock funding
must respect the special characteristics of the asset being
stocked. This is a fact well understood by Sword Apak, a company
which cut its teeth providing dedicated wholesale finance systems
to the agricultural finance sector in the 1980s.

Now in a developing relationship with stock funding giant De
Lage Landen, and also a provider of systems to Scania Finance,
Lombard, SG Equipment Finance, Nordea SFS, Case New Holland, plus a
host of Europe’s biggest stock funders in the motor sector, Sword
Apak has made a name for itself as an experienced and highly
specialised provider of SF.

The most recent incarnation of Sword Apak’s stock funding
system, Version 6.0, is built on a Java-based platform with an
Oracle database, and exists as a specialist standalone product with
no primary retail function. It provides a framework for real-time
stock tracking, as well as managing dealer credit lines
automatically in order to allow a small team to administer large
stocking portfolios.

Sword Apak’s sales director, James Powell, who has recently
rejoined the company after gaining additional international
experience with Fimasys, has big plans for the future. He said:
“Following the Sword Group acquisition, our plan is to take our
European experience to a global arena.”

“We have a well-established application service provider (ASP)
structure, with a data centre heavily audited by our customers,
that has been in place for more than 20 years,” said Powell.

“Working as an ASP is almost like being a company’s IT
department – it helps us to work closely with our customers and
places us well to advise best practice for stock funding.”

Powell thinks the system’s strength is in its specialisation.
“There’s not a lot of crossover between retail and wholesale
systems, in terms of functional requirements.

“In reality, most lenders manage their retail and wholesale
portfolios separately.

“We believe our customers benefit significantly from having
something designed from the ground up.”