Possibly Europe’s most
seasoned SF software provider is Sword Apak. It has offered a
dedicated wholesale finance system along fairly consistent lines
since the late 1980s.
A close competitor is French
provider Fimasys, which provides systems for Société Générale and
Crédit Agricole, as well as for Honda Finance in the UK. Other
competitors include Scandinavian software giant TietoEnator, and
International Decision Systems.
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Datascan also, an ASP-model company
based in Atlanta USA, has a limited number of customers in
Europe.
Other systems will enter the game
in 2009, however. After being quiet on the wholesale market since
2005, White Clarke Group intends to secure a European
implementation of its CALMS system’s new wholesale finance
application, the first instance of which will go online with
WesBank in South Africa early next year.
The Java-based system, designed
from scratch over the past three years, will only be used for car
stocking in South Africa, but is intended to support any asset type
across an international distribution network. WCG is also
considering adapting an ASP model for use in the SME sector.
After successful implementations in
the Asia-Pacific region during the second quarter of this year, CHP
Consulting is ready to deploy the wholesale finance module of its
ALFA system in Europe.
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By GlobalDataCurrently implemented for passenger
vehicle wholesale, the system is “asset agnostic”, according to
CHP, and therefore suitable for stock funding support of any type
of asset. The system will be web-deployed, and fully functional to
funders, dealers and suppliers.
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Sponsored case study: Sword Apak has big plans for the future
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.”
