Liscor has entered the leasing software
business at a time when this market is having a recession all
of its very own. How will it fare?
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Judging by the arrival of Liscor on
the scene, one would think so. Until the end of last year Liscor
provided services to, in the main, large Italian leasing companies
and banks. It boasted among its clients the likes of Leasint, Banca
Agrileasing and Banca Italease, all top 10 players in the country’s
banking community. But since then it has spread its wings across
Europe and, almost out of the blue, has become a player worth
taking note of on the international stage.
Its biggest deal of late has been with
UniCredit Leasing, Europe’s largest leasing company, in which
Liscor is charged with providing software across all of UniCredit
Leasing’s European operations. It has already set up a system for
the bank’s leasing arm in Romania and is due to do the same in most
of Central and Eastern Europe.
UniCredit Leasing will use the
company’s flagship solution, the integrated FORWARD system, which
is structured across all levels of business – front, middle and
back office – and can be used by domestic as well as international
lessors.
Meanwhile, Liscor has also signed
deals with SG Equipment Finance and De Lage Landen.
New locations
Flushed with the success of these
wins, Liscor, which traditionally restricted the locations of its
operating hubs to Italy and the CEE markets, recently set up a
subsidiary in Spain, Liscor Iberica, headed by Jean-Marc Ducor, one
of Liscor’s two managing directors.
In expanding across Europe Liscor is
following in the footsteps of a number of other well known players
with a pan-European presence, including CHP Consulting and White
Clarke Group. However, not all of these are finding the current
marketplace to be an easy ride.
According to Ayub Ghauri, head of
marketing at software provider NetSol Technologies, software
companies with a considerable international presence will not win
much new business over the next few years. The main reason, he
says, is that at present, “the barriers to enter the leasing
software market are high” for every new software provider at a
European level.
As a result NetSol itself is now
keeping a low profile in Europe and is instead focusing its efforts
on those regions where it is stronger, particularly the US and
Asia-Pacific region where it has several blue-chip clients.
It recently underwent an
organisational restructuring, which included the opening of new
headquarters in California and the launch of a growth strategy more
focused on China and the Middle East.
It is not just a lack of business,
however, that is undermining the need for new software providers on
leasing’s international stage.
Peter-Jan Bentein, the MD of ING Lease
Netherlands, said the market is “relatively well-covered at the
moment with the current number of players”. He added that some
lessors prefer these days to build their own systems rather than
rely on ones sourced from third parties.
His colleague Chris Stamper, the head
of ING Lease UK, is even more sceptical. In his view, new entrants
at a European level would need a “miracle” to succeed, at least in
the UK.
“The biggest issue they have got is
that finance companies are not going to make any significant
investments in new systems at present because everybody has
cancelled their capital expenditure programmes,” he says.
He foresees that it will take another
two to three years before lessors will be in a position to start
reinvesting in systems. Meanwhile, for any system to survive, it
needs to be significantly better than other systems, he
concludes.
It is a well known fact that setting
up an international software system is extremely tough and takes
years to get right. Liscor is looking to do exactly this at a time
when well established players are withdrawing from the market. It
faces a challenging future and surviving the recession will only be
its first hill to climb.
Antonio Fabrizio
