Barclays Asset and Sales Finance (BA&SF) has been on a
recruitment drive since February to increase manpower, as part of a
strategic move to increase the volume of leasing and asset finance
deals in the medium business segment.

Having already added about 30 to 40 people to the team this
year, sales head Keith Sangwin said the division is working on
hiring another 40 staff to bring the total number in the sales team
to 160 by the end of the year.

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“We’re punching below our weight at the moment and the reason
for that is almost exclusively because we haven’t  had enough
people in this market place,” he said.

Pointing out that BA&SF had already seen success in the
medium business segment, Sangwin said there is still room for
BA&SF to grow its market share. 

As a few banks have either withdrawn from the market, or cut
their exposure to the asset finance arena recently, the opportunity
to improve profit margins is presenting itself again.

“That’s important for any bank and any institution at the moment
because as liquidity gets tighter then return on equity gets more
and more important,” he said.

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Still, BA&SF has had to tighten up a little on
broker-introduced business with the rise in defaults.

“We’ve had to do that because impairments and bad debt have
increased,” said Sangwin, “and I don’t think we’ve given brokers a
good enough service.

“We’ve had too many brokers and therefore we’ve decided to cut
the number of brokers we deal with. As a result we’ll provide them
with a better service, and make sure the returns that we get are
more appropriate for the risk that we’re taking.”