The total leasing market will amount to 2.3 billion euros this year, up by some 15% on 2005, the representatives of the Banking Leasing Association (ALB) say.
The total value of the goods financed by leasing amounted to 2.015 billion euros last year, an increase of 39% from 2004 and over twice higher than in 2003.
“We estimate the market will reach 2.3 billion euros this year, which would account for a 15% growth compared with last year,” stated Adriana Ahciarliu, the general secretary of the Banking Leasing Association.
The Association groups together 15 of the largest leasing companies, most of them held by banking groups, with its members representing approximately 54% of the total market last year.
ALB officials say that the regulation of the operation of the non-banking financial institutions, as stipulated in the ordinance enforced since the beginning of this year, is necessary and that it will not negatively affect the leasing market. The regulations include raising the minimum share capital for a leasing company to 200,000 euros. “These regulations will allow at last to accurately diagnose the market, by having the leasing companies register with the NBR, as well as to purge the market, by removing leasing activity from the field of operations of several thousand trading companies, which use it for their own purposes,” Ahciarliu explained.
The major players on the market feel the same way about this. “Only then will we be able to have an accurate inventory of the market and know our competitors. The market might be smaller in terms of number of players than talked about until now,” says Septimiu Postelnicu, general manager of HVB Leasing.
He says he expects the leasing market to go up this year, but adds the growth is hard to quantify, because it depends on many external factors such as the development of the car and real estate markets.
Leasing market
* Total value of goods financed by this system: 2.015bn euros in 2005
* Estimated to go up by 15% this year
* Vehicle leasing accounts for the majority of the market, 1.66bn euros in 2005, but dropped in 2004 from 86% to 82.5% of the total
* Operating leasing rose to 305m euros (15.2% of the market), while real estate leasing reached 47m euros