PROFILE OF A DEPARTMENT WITHIN A EUROPEAN LEASING
COMPANY
Department: HSBC Structured Asset Finance
Go deeper with GlobalData
Head of Department: Bill Cuff
Number of staff: 5
Head office: Birmingham
Target market: Middle to large ticket assets;
deals ranging from £5m to £50m
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By GlobalDataFollowing a restructuring of the HSBC banking group in 2004,
HSBC Equipment Finance was launched as an additional department
within the Structured Asset Finance division.
As part of the bank’s aim of increasing profitability and moving
up the value chain, the department was set up to finance middle to
larger ticket assets, areas in which HSBC had less focus
before.
Head of department, Bill Cuff, says he is pleased with the
progress the department has made since its inception. Without
disclosing figures Cuff said the department beat sales targets last
year by 30 per cent, and already this year it has beaten its target
for the whole of 2008.
“So from a fresh start in 2004, while the first couple of years
were quite slow, over the last two years it’s taken off. All the
work we put in is starting to pay off and we’ve got some very
strong sales performances in 2007 and 2008.”
Last year, the department was nominated as the bank’s top
performer, while one of its team members, Michael Proctor, was
named joint top sales person which he shared with another employee
at HSBC Equipment Finance.
Cuff’s team of five sales staff clock in the hours mostly from
home or out in the field. Kitted with standard communication tools
of notebooks, BlackBerry devices and broadband internet connection,
the team meet once a month to exchange ideas and knowledge.
“We tend not to use external training, we learn from the deals
that we’ve done and share that knowledge between us,” Cuff
says.
Since the structured asset finance deals are typically bespoke
financial solutions, Cuff says the customer satisfaction quotient
is not measured by quick turnarounds or approvals unlike standard
small ticket deals.
“It’s more important to get it right, to give them a right
decision rather than a quick one. Being quick is important but it’s
not the most important thing,” he adds.
But customised solutions have their own complexities, however.
Cuff says there is the drawback of the inability to fully automate
the back-office processing of a proposal.
“It’s mostly an automated process but we do have to sometimes
find some manual workarounds,” he says. This time next year, the
department hopes to have implemented software upgrades to deal with
these issues.
Even as the credit crunch causes more businesses and banks to
buckle, Cuff and his team are holding up rather well. Part of the
reason is that the lack of liquidity has driven some banks out of
asset finance while others are scaling back on lending. This has,
of course, been good for HSBC which is in a stronger capital
position relative to other UK banks.
“Unlike some others we’re still open to business and I also
believe that in the past the margins have been pushed far too low.
I see this as a necessary market adjustment to margins,” he
observes.
With less banks jostling for new business, Cuff’s team stand a
good chance of reporting another record sales year. Perhaps the top
performer award will be less elusive this year.
